In this episode, global equity portfolio manager Paul Moroz examines how investors can navigate a market increasingly shaped by conflict, shifting narratives, and wider ranges of possible outcomes. He begins with the recent escalation in the Middle East and the market's relatively measured response, then considers the second-order effects that can matter just as much as the initial shock. The conversation also explores how recent AI-driven swings in software have revealed a market increasingly influenced by thematic flows and short-term sentiment, rather than the more measured process of weighing business fundamentals. Throughout, Paul returns to a central idea: good portfolio management is rarely about one big call, but about making many small, disciplined decisions within a diversified portfolio.

Highlights:

• Why the market's reaction to the recent escalation in the Middle East has remained relatively measured so far

• John Deere as a second-order effects case study: how rising oil and fertilizer costs can affect customer economics, margins, and capital allocation

• Thematic trading and the gap between price and intrinsic value: the Centrini AI thought piece in February triggered a broad software sell-off, showing how quickly disruption narratives—not fundamentals—can dominate market pricing

• Capital intensity isn't the enemy—poor returns are. Microsoft and Amazon are pouring billions into AI infrastructure, but a key question is whether bundling compute with distribution advantages will deliver attractive returns on that capital.
• Why Paul believes the market's "voting machine" is increasingly overwhelming the "weighing machine." Markets vote on sentiment every day but building real businesses (and real wealth) takes years of focusing on fundamentals while tuning out the noise.
  
  

Host:

Rob Campbell, CFA
Institutional Portfolio Manager

Guest:

Paul Moroz, CFA
Portfolio Manager

This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts.

Founded in 1974, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. (pronounced "more") is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore.

Visit Mawer at https://www.mawer.com.

Follow us on social:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/mawer-investment-management/

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In this episode, U.S. equity portfolio manager Grayson Witcher explores what it means to invest exclusively in American businesses at a time when the U.S. is becoming more short‑term, more transactional, and more central to global change. He contrasts a shifting U.S. "extraction" mindset with China's longer-term industrial strategy and considers how that dynamic is reshaping globalization into a more regional, security-conscious world. The conversation then turns to portfolio implications: why the team has been reducing exposure to mature, highly penetrated software names facing intensifying competition and AI disruption, how the market's treatment of AI has evolved from hype to a more "show me the returns" phase, and where they see resilient opportunities.

Highlights:

• How a more short-term, "extraction"-oriented U.S. policy stance—via tariffs, reshoring, and industrial policy—is altering incentives for companies and trading partners.
• The evolving nature of software moats in an AI world, including higher competitive intensity, mature end markets, and why some long-term winners' valuations may no longer be justified.
• The market's transition from rewarding any AI narrative to demanding clearer evidence of economic returns on massive cloud and data-center capital spending.
• A deliberate tilt toward businesses positioned for a more regionalized, security-focused world order, including nuclear, defense, and automation suppliers with multiple ways to win.
• The importance of remaining bottom-up and valuation-driven while acknowledging regime change—using portfolio construction to manage uncertainty rather than making binary macro bets.

Host:

Andrew Johnson, CFA

Institutional Portfolio Manager

Guest:

Grayson Witcher, CFA, AB

Portfolio Manager

This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts.

Founded in 1974, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. (pronounced "more") is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore.

Visit Mawer at https://www.mawer.com.

Follow us on social:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/mawer-investment-management/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mawerinvestmentmanagement/

Wen Quan Cheong, co-manager of Mawer's emerging markets equity strategy, outlines four major themes shaping the opportunity set today. First, the "picks and shovels" of AI: upstream enablers such as advanced chip manufacturers, memory makers, and specialized chip-testing firms that are benefiting from structural bottlenecks in the AI supply chain. Second, companies that are actually converting AI investment into higher returns on capital. Third, the "Great Supply Chain Reshuffle," where national security concerns, tariffs, and "China plus one" strategies are driving a reconfiguration of strategic manufacturing infrastructure across Asia and the U.S. And finally, a broader universe of less obvious EM stories that illustrate how opportunity is evolving across regions and sectors as these forces play out.

Highlights:

• Why upstream AI enablers are seeing such powerful earnings leverage: how capacity cuts, equipment bottlenecks, and surging demand for DRAM, HBM, and NAND have flipped the memory market from oversupplied to structurally tight.
• What it takes for companies to truly convert AI investment into sustainable returns on invested capital, and why early, well-run adopters may enjoy a multi year edge.
• How shifting geopolitics, U.S. tariffs, and national security concerns are driving a "Great Supply Chain Reshuffle," from TSMC-linked clean room specialists like Actor Group supporting new fabs to Chinese manufacturers using their domestic scale and integration to expand overseas.
• Why emerging markets are more than just China and tech, with examples ranging from Saudi insurance aggregation and Vietnamese pharmacies to ship maintenance businesses with recurring revenues.

Host:

Rob Campbell, CFA

Institutional Portfolio Manager

Guest:

Wen Quan Cheong, CFA

Portfolio Manager

This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts.

Founded in 1974, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. (pronounced "more") is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore.

Visit Mawer at https://www.mawer.com.

Follow us on social:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/mawer-investment-management/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mawerinvestmentmanagement/