Australia’s small-cap index might have looked calm in FY26, but beneath the surface it was anything but. Ophir Founder and Senior Portfolio Manager Andrew Mitchell joins us to unpack record sector dispersion, why reporting season exposed cracks in the earnings outlook, and how AI & data centre spending are reshaping opportunities for investors. Andrew also takes us inside Ophir’s bottom-up stock-picking process and explains why Codan remains one of the portfolio’s highest-conviction ideas.
In this episode:
00:00 Small caps: calm on the surface, chaos underneath
05:45 What reporting season revealed about Australian earnings
09:45 AI, data centres & the changing CapEx trade
14:33 Southern Cross Electrical & Australia’s data centre boom
17:57 Why reporting season volatility is getting harder to navigate
21:56 Inside Ophir’s small-cap investment process
28:44 Why Ophir avoids commodity-driven sectors
33:09 The Codan thesis: gold detectors, drones & defence spending
Stocks & ETFs Mentioned: BHP (ASX: BHP), Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), REA Group (ASX: REA), SEEK (ASX: SEK), JB Hi-Fi (ASX: JBH), Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX: CWY), Integral Diagnostics (ASX: IDX), Monash IVF Group (ASX: MVF), Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX: SXE), SKS Technologies (ASX: SKS), NRW Holdings (ASX: NWH), GenusPlus Group (ASX: GNP), Codan (ASX: CDA), DroneShield (ASX: DRO), TPG Telecom (ASX: TPG), Afterpay, Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR), MasTec (NYSE: MTZ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI)
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