What Happens When Intelligence Gets Cheap?

Hi QAVVERS,

I don’t have much to report this week, so let’s just get into it.

AUSTRALIAN MARKET UPDATE

The All Ordinaries rose 0.33% over the five trading sessions to Thursday 8 October, closing at 8,823.2:

The All Ords fell 71.4 points, or 0.80%, on Thursday, giving back the gains made earlier in the calendar week.
The S&P/ASX 200 also fell on Thursday, losing 66.8 points, or 0.77%, to close at 8,660.9.

All Ordinaries (^AORD): Yahoo Finance 5D snapshot, including 9 October 2026 intraday

Source: Yahoo Finance, captured 1:34 pm Brisbane time on 9 October 2026 (delayed data). This 5D chart includes today’s partial session; the commentary above covers five completed sessions through 8 October.

US MARKET UPDATE

The S&P 500 rose 1.29% over the five trading sessions to Thursday 8 October, closing at 7,765.36:

The index fell 0.47% on Thursday after reaching an intraday high of 7,844.52 on Tuesday 6 October.

So, let’s get into my weekly updates and see where we are at.

All the Best,
Cam

QAV MYTH KILLERS

There was some big news in the world of mathematics this week, when OpenAI announced one of their internal models had just published 722 maths papers. Now that may mean nothing to you and I but to mathematicians it seems to have been a big deal. The Economist wrote “Tuesday, October 6th of 2026, may go down as one of the most consequential days in the history of mathematics.” There’s probably been quite a few consequential mathematics days in the last 2500 years, so to make it “one of the most consequential”, really says something.

Read the full article →

Paper figures walking around an orange figure-eight path, with one taking a blue exit ramp.

STOCK ANALYSIS OF THE WEEK

Australian Members can check out the stocks we traded in QAV Australian Light portfolios this week.

American Members can check out the stocks we traded in QAV American Light portfolios this week.

Tony did a pulled pork on KMD Holdings, the group behind Kathmandu, Rip Curl, and Oboz, weighing up whether the battered retailer is a turnaround or a trap in a tough macro environment. Catch the full analysis in the podcast link below.

This week on the American podcast I did a pulled pork on Atlanticus (ATLC), an Atlanta-based subprime credit company serving the 63 million Americans who can’t access loans through normal channels. Check the podcast link below.

BUY LIST

Each week, we produce a buy list based on our value investing system that we share with our QAV Club members. The intended primary purpose of this buy list is for club members to use as a reference for comparing their own buy list. In theory, all of our buy lists should look pretty similar each week.

AUSTRALIAN BUY LIST

QAV Value Investing Buy List (AU) 2026-10-03

U.S. BUY LIST

QAV Value Investing Buy List 2026-10-04

PORTFOLIO PERFORMANCE

We compare our performance to what we think is the most relevant benchmark (SPDR 200 in Australia, S&P500 in the USA), but if you’re new to investing, these comparisons might not mean much. Instead, you can compare our performance to the top-performing Super Funds in Australia and see why an amateur active investor (who has a system to follow) can out-perform most of the “professionals”.

We publish a fresh performance snapshot once a month. Weekly noise doesn’t tell you much in a value-investing system — what matters is the trend.

October 2026 performance snapshot.

Australian Model Portfolio: No trades this week.

American Model Portfolio: No trades this week.

Become a QAV Light Member today and start your investing on the right track

If you want to find out what we’re trading in QAV Light each week, sign up to become a member. You’ll get an email from me every Monday letting you know what we’re buying and selling in that portfolio. You can choose to copy our trades or not. It’s the easiest way to start your rules-based investing career… and you don’t even need to know the rules. I’ll follow the rules for you. It’s a good first step to eventually becoming a QAV Club member and learning how to run the system by yourself.

QAV LIGHT: You don’t need to build it to tell the time.

(Note: Americans interested in joining QAV Light or Club please go here instead.)

Add QAV America — US stocks, the same QAV method

Already a QAV member? You can add QAV America as your second membership at 50% off — US-listed stocks, the same QAV approach, billed in AUD through this site (just one payment to keep an eye on). Add QAV America →

Not a QAV member yet? Join QAV first, then you can add QAV America at the 50% member rate.