As investment markets continue to evolve and passive capital crowds large caps, Australian small caps present a rare opportunity for active investors to capture growth, diversification, exposure to emerging sectors, and long-term outperformance potential from an inefficient equity market segment.

With a proven track record of strong returns, lower volatility, and consistent outperformance, the Maple-Brown Abbott Australian Small Companies Fund stands out as a disciplined, high-conviction strategy delivering sustainable value through most market conditions.

Dougal Maple-Brown joins Christopher Conway from Livewire Markets to examine five ASX companies, uncover value opportunities, and analyze top stocks across banking, mining, healthcare, and consumer staples.

oOh!media (OML) is currently benefiting from a combination of structural and cyclical tailwinds Including: 1) shift in media spend / continued reallocation of advertising budgets from traditional media to Out-of-Home (OOH); 2) cyclical upswing with lower interest rates and improving macroeconomic conditions supporting an increase in overall media spend; and 3) operational turnaround improving fundamentals with the rollout of new contracts and improved execution.

With the Australian equity market trading near all-time highs, valuations across many sectors—particularly Industrials and Financials—appear expensive. Key benchmark stocks such as Commonwealth Bank, Goodman Group, Macquarie Group, and Wesfarmers are contributing to the expensive profile. Dougal Maple-Brown outlines his view on the market and where we see value in Australian equities.

Market noise would have us believe we're at the end of the road for the energy transition and the push to decarbonise - not just in the US, but even in more climate-oriented markets such as Europe. But the reality is far more nuanced than the headlines suggest.

Despite recent policy headwinds and ESG rhetoric challenges, we maintain our conviction that environmental, social and governance factors represent material risks and opportunities for infrastructure companies. We believe companies demonstrating strong sustainability and governance practices deliver superior long-term returns while creating value for multiple stakeholders.

Australian small cap resource stocks are often viewed as more speculative relative to their industrial counterparts. While historical returns generated by Australian small resources have been more volatile, periods of ‘super-normal’ returns have been demonstrated, resulting from outperformance in select commodity cycles. The ability to consistently pick commodity cycles is inherently difficult and not a focus of our investment process. However, we believe there is significant alpha-generating potential at a stock specific level, although investors need to be selective at the smaller end of the Australian small resources market.

Gold prices have been on an upward trajectory for the past two years, with a weak Australian dollar boosting the price in local currency even further. While we don’t foresee this rapid rise continuing in the short term, the investment proposition for many Australian small cap gold stocks still appears attractive, even if prices were to pull back 10-20%.