Keep CALM and Trade On – QAV America #25

by | Oct 23, 2025 | America, Investing Podcast, Podcast Episodes, QAVUS, US Episode | 0 comments

**Episode Overview**
In this episode of *QAV America* (Ep. 25), Cameron and Tony unpack a wild few weeks in the U.S. markets following Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats on China and the subsequent “birthday crash.” They discuss Australia’s surprising role in rare earths, portfolio moves including DAC and GTN, and new additions VSAT and RNR. The main feature is a deep dive into Cal-Maine Foods (ticker: CALM), America’s largest egg producer, exploring its scandal-ridden history, DOJ investigations, and surprising fundamentals. From “egg cartels” to F-scores, the duo balance analysis and absurdity, topping it off with film talk (Scorsese, Lynch) and kung fu bruises.

### ⏱️ **Timestamps**

**00:00** – Market chaos, Trump’s tariff tantrum, and rare earths politics
**06:30** – Australia’s rare earth advantage and Gina Rinehart’s role
**10:00** – Portfolio moves: selling DAC and GTN, buying VSAT and RNR
**18:00** – Portfolio performance update and lessons from volatility
**22:30** – *Pulled Pork:* Cal-Maine Foods (CALM) deep dive 
**52:00** – After Hours: Scorsese, *Taxi Driver*, Lynch’s *Elephant Man*, and kung fu chaos

Transcription

 

Cameron: [00:00:00] to QAV America, Tony, episode 25. We’re recording this on the 21st of October, 2025. Well been a big couple of weeks in the US market. Tony, uh, Donald Trump. Crash the market again on my birthday, October 10th. It was his, uh, birthday present to me, which I appreciate.

I’m wearing your birthday present to me. My fight club t-shirt, um, was good ’cause I had a broken nose and black eyes when you sent it to me. That was fun. Uh, but Donald Trump threatened massive increases in US tariffs on Chinese imports, following China’s announcement of stricter export controls on rare earth elements.

And the market predictably crashed and then he said, uh, 10 days later, yesterday, today when meeting with our prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, our KAKA [00:01:00] Albo. For the Americans. That’s what we call our prime minister here. That’s the amount of deference you get as a Prime Minister in Australia. We call you Albo.

He had a fantastic deal he’s gonna put together with China after a fantastic deal with Australia. I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know about you, but I think Albo was very happy. About the, uh, announcement of the rare earths deal from China, because it gave him a really good chance to have a really great meeting with President Trump.

They had something that they both wanted to talk about, gave Trump a good positive news release. Our former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, who’s the current, uh, ambassador, didn’t have as good a time with President Trump. He said, I don’t even know who you are and I don’t like you, but it’s all forgiven. He said, immediately afterwards.

Tony Kynaston: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, um, it’s hard not to like someone you don’t know, but I, I take. I

take

Cameron: I dunno.

I, I, I saw, I, I had a look [00:02:00] at Kevin Rudd’s face and decided I didn’t look at him too.

Tony Kynaston: he is. He’s Trump’s not alone is he.

Cameron: No,

no, no.

Tony Kynaston: gotta say Australia saves the day again. we elbow’s ridden into the US with a mineral, a rare minerals agreement. You know, hold my beer. I got this. We got you want rare minerals. Let’s

do a

Cameron: yeah,

Yeah.

Tony Kynaston: yeah.

Cameron: yeah. G Gina Reinhardt to the rescue. ’cause she controls a lot of what we have apparently. Uh, but just to put it in perspective. Australia is the fourth largest producer of rare earth minerals in the world at present on track to be number two, I believe. But China controls 70% of the global market

and even an A larger share, 85 to 90% of the refining and processing capability globally.

Tony Kynaston: which is important.

Cameron: if we can dig it out the ground. We need to send it to China to get [00:03:00] processed probably. So

you know they,

Tony Kynaston: called Linus, which has got a plant to process rare earths minerals in, say the Philippines. I think somewhere in Southeast Asia.

Cameron: Hmm,

Tony Kynaston: easy. There’s been a few with the local government over it, but um, yeah, there is a fallback.

Cameron: right. But anyway, the market recovered. Uh, it tar and, uh, everything’s back kind of to where it was pre the announcement. So the frothy market is back, and I did have to sell a couple of things though in that period, uh, out of our US portfolio, which is rare. So I had to sell DAC Dan aos, a Greek shipping company that I had owned.

For quite a while and got to sell it at a profit too, but it broke our three point trend line sell trigger for new listeners. Uh, we try and hold [00:04:00] for as long as possible when we buy a company, but we do have a couple of sell triggers. One of them is a three point trend line sell. We’ll track it on a five year, month end.

Graph and if it breaks through that support line, we’ll sell it. And this did, but I still managed to sell it at a 5% profit. Plus there were dividends over that period as well, which don’t get factored into stock edia. But, uh, neither does the s and p five hundreds dividends, so it all tracks. Okay. So we sold it at a 5% profit.

I also had to sell GTN the TV guys.

Tony Kynaston: really?

Cameron: came back quite a bit and also became a three point trend line sell neutral result for us. Plus, there were dividends factored into that one as well. And I added two new companies to the portfolio, VSAT via sat, a global tech, a global communications company, has defense and advanced technologies.

It’s up [00:05:00] 7% since I bought it. Which is pretty good. And Renaissance Air Holdings, RNRV, SATs on the Nasdaq, RNR is on nzi. Um, it’s a global provider of reinsurance and insurance companies. It’s down 5% since I bought it, so they kind of six seven is the kids say you don’t have kids, so you probably don’t know that, but six seven.

Six seven. Yeah. God. Thank think yourself. Lucky you don’t have a 11-year-old boy right now ’cause that’s all you hear all day, every day. 6, 7, 6, 7.

Tony Kynaston: okay?

Cameron: and I probably should have done a pulled pork on one of those today, but I’m not. Because I wanna talk about eggs. But before we do that, um, I’m also gonna talk about our US portfolio, which is not having a good time.

Quite honestly. It for the Cal, for the 12 month period, it is down. 17% versus the s and p [00:06:00] 500, which is up nearly 15% year to date. It’s down. Well, about the same actually. So it’s all started. It started when Trump took office. Whether or not that is coincidental, I don’t know, but uh, for the. All time since inception, which is September 20, 23, little over two years, our portfolio is up 56% versus the s and p up 51.5%.

So we’ve. We were doing triple the SMP going back to late last year and now we’ve come back to even Stevens. So has not been a great year for our portfolio, but it’s still doing okay. Like all in all, all told we’re beating the index so over two years, which is fine, up up nearly 60% in two years. Like no rational investors gonna [00:07:00] complain about that, but I.

It has not been a good year for our US portfolio. Not that anything is done particularly badly. I mean, I’ve had to sell a couple of things. Everything’s doing okay. It’s just come back from insanely good highs, as I say, every week, but I’ll say it again. Willis Lease Finance Group, which is our best performer, was up like 300% late last year.

Now it’s only up 174%, so it’s lost a lot of gains, but still it’s up. 174%, uh, since I bought it in November, 2023. So two years up, 174%. I’m not complaining. It’s doing okay. But the company I’m gonna do a Paul pork on today, Tony is Palm, CALM. Keep calm and keep trading trade on.

Tony Kynaston: what we need When the [00:08:00] portfolio comes back to the index isn’t it

Cameron: keep

calm. Keep calm. Great Ticker. I had to do it. I saw that I had to do it. The company is actually called Cal Maine, and they are the largest egg business in the us. The largest producer and distributor of fresh cell eggs in the United States. Guess you could say they’re an excellent company, Tony, an excellent stock.

But I’m not sure if I’m gonna call this episode number one in the pecking order or the Bad Egg. ’cause they’ve had quite a few scandals.

Tony Kynaston: Oh really Oh dear

Cameron: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well. But, but before we get into that, couple of things I wanna point out. If anyone’s thinking about investing in them, we wouldn’t right now, because they are a Josephine No, actually, they’ve kind of rebounded from a Josephine.

They were a Josephine. So from our perspective, a Josephine is a stock that is above a byline above our cell line. [00:09:00] But it closed or its price was less than the end of the previous month. It, it has come back from its peak, but it’s rebounded from that. So it’s still above, its. Bylines in its latest bylines, so it’s probably still okay.

But there is a egg commodity. You know, we, we love to track underlying commodities and this has an egg commodity. There are, there is an an eggs US commodity that I found on trading economics.com eggs, us and eggs are currently a three point trend line cell.

Tony Kynaston: That’s why the prices are down probably and calm

Cameron: Yeah, well actually it’s, it’s a Schrodinger. Um, so for new listeners, what we call a Schrodinger is when it’s simultaneously above its byline, but below its cell line. So it is both things at the same time, like Schrodinger is cat. Uh, until you look at it and then you go, okay, well it’s below its cell line, so it’s a cell not that far below its cell [00:10:00] line, so it doesn’t have to recover much to get back above.

Um, but it is so, uh. The way QAV works. If we have a stock that has an underlying commodity and that underlying commodity is in a, is not in a buy position, we won’t buy the stock because experience shows that stocks tend to follow with a bit of a lag. They’re underlying commodity, but eggs are a messy business as we’ll.

See, Tony, there’s a lot going on with eggs in the US market and in the Australian market, to be fair.

Egg had been big.

Uh, see, I could have gone with that too. So many egg jokes that we could make. Eggs had been big news in the last year, uh, in the us. I remember Donald Trump talking about egg prices during his campaign.

How day one, two things he was gonna do on day three. Things he was gonna do on day one was bring peace to Gaza, bring peace to Ukraine. [00:11:00] And get the egg prices to drop. He did none of those three things on day one or day two. Uh, he has got some sort of a peace deal in Gaza now it seems. They had to flatten Gaza and kill everyone first, but, uh, some sort of a peace deal there.

Although I. I don’t think that, and the egg price eventually came down. It went up for four months, five months after he got elected, but it started coming down a couple of months ago. Um, so. Egg prices have surged in the last five years due to combination of things. COVID was one, avian, flu was another one.

Supply chain issues. I read that at one point US federal agents were seizing eggs more often than drugs at the US border. I’m surprised he’s not. Bombing Venezuelan boats for trying to get eggs to the US. In March of 2023, consumers were paying [00:12:00] six to $10 a dozen for eggs

Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm

Cameron: uh, sort of pre COVID.

So egg prices had gone nuts. Um, as I said, Trump said he’d reduced the price when he got into office, uh, but he tared the eggs instead, they went up. Um, and I love an egg taco. You can’t go wrong with an egg taco. It was like a breakfast burrito, basically breakfast burritoed the egg prices for a few months.

Can’t go wrong, right?

Tony Kynaston: Hmm

Cameron: But they came back down eventually. Um, in Australia at the moment, eggs are about five to seven bucks a dozen 11. If you’re going organic, according to. Cage free. Well, I think cage free. You can get cage free, sort of, uh, down the cheaper end of the range, depending on which, if you get like a home brand, Kohl’s or Woolies, it’s sort of five, six bucks.

Um, according to Fred, uh, the US BLS. Bureau of Labor [00:13:00] Statistics, um, average retail price for a dozen large great. A eggs in the US is about US $3 59, which is about five 50 Aussie as of August, 2025. So about the same there as it is here. But it is, as I said, a commodity cell at the moment. So the backstory to Cal Maine, which is spelled C-A-L-M-A-I-N-E, uh, surprisingly, they’re not based in Maine

Tony Kynaston: California

Cameron: No, none of those things, so I dunno why they’re called this, but they are the largest producer and distributor of fresher eggs in the us. Uh, plus a range of specialty eggs, cage-free, organic, free range past your raised, nutritionally enhanced. They also sell egg products and prepared foods, hard cooked eggs, liquid frozen eggs, egg wraps, [00:14:00] protein pancakes, crepes, and.

Omelets and they do private label for big grocers. So pretty much they do hatch to carton to store. They cover the whole egg value chain?

Tony Kynaston: Do they sell chickens as well Like it’s is it like the company in Australia called Ingham’s

Cameron: No,

Tony Kynaston: Okay

Cameron: eggs and egg related products to the best of my knowledge.

Um.

Tony Kynaston: should

them Hey I got an idea

Cameron: Sell chickens as well. Well, that’s how they did start though. So the history go. The founder was Fred Adams, Jr. He was, uh, the lesser known member of the Adams family. He was raised on a Mississippi farm, purchased a used truck in 1957, started delivering feed to rural areas surrounding Mississippi’s Capital, Jackson, not to be confused with, uh, the other Jackson, I think Michigan

Tony Kynaston: [00:15:00] harder than a proper sprout

Cameron: Jackson.

uh, financial that I talked about on an earlier show that had based in Jackson, Michigan. This is Jackson, Mississippi. Later that year, he started his first chicken farm on leased property and began his first commercial laying operation in Mendenhall, Mississippi in 1958. In 1963, they built the world’s largest egg farm in Edwards, Mississippi in 1969 Adams Foods, as it was then known, merged with Dairy Fresh Products Company of California and Maine, egg Farms of Lewiston, Maine, creating Cow, Maine Foods, Inc.

Supplying eggs from California to Maine. Floated on the NASDAQ in 1996. So there you go. Quite a story. It’s all about eggs. Tony eggs, eggs, eggs. [00:16:00] Market cap of about $6 billion and I dunno what their current numbers are, but at the conclusion of 2019, they had a flock of 45 million laying hens. Can’t afford to sell ’em.

They’re working.

Chicken, chicken Run those anime, those, um, whoever those films are. Mel Gibson,

Tony Kynaston: He was one

of the

Cameron: is he in

Tony Kynaston: I think of the

hero on

Cameron: Really? Chicken Run? Wow.

Tony Kynaston: Alex

Cameron: an and

Tony Kynaston: Yeah

Cameron: Chicken?

 Any who? Um, yeah, so that’s the Fred Adams story. Couldn’t find anything else out about him. Now they have been racked with scandals though, and lawsuits and there, and there’s an investigation going on at the moment, which might explain why it’s showing up on our buy list is currently undervalued.

Tony Kynaston: Mm-hmm

Cameron: the COVID-19 pandemic, uh, [00:17:00] they increased egg prices over 300% from a dollar to $3 44 a dozen, and they were sued by, I think it was the Texas Attorney General during this period.

Who said the price?

Tony Kynaston: Egg Glu Big Egg

Cameron: Yeah, like, yeah, he loves his eggs, eggs and oil. Um, challenged the price jumpers, unjustified, but because there hadn’t been any actual supply chain interruption at the time, but the lawsuit was dismissed in August of 2020 without prejudice, so that one they got away with. But in November, 2023, the company was found liable in a lawsuit alleging that it colluded along with Rosaker Farms, United Egg Producers and United States Egg Marketers to reduce the supply of eggs and increase prices from 2004 to 2000 and.

Eight. The [00:18:00] plaintiffs in the case were a large, a group of large food manufacturers led by Kraft and Nestle. They filed the lawsuit in 2011, and it didn’t reach trial until October, 2023. And, and a jury found that there was a conspiracy and found for the plaintiffs. So, um. Big Egg Tony. It was, uh, a big egg conspiracy.

Tony Kynaston: of the Chicken World

Cameron: What does OPEC stand for? Something. Egg Consortium. The, uh, original.

Tony Kynaston: produ Yeah

Cameron: Original,

Tony Kynaston: Producers

Cameron: Big Egg Cons Consortiums. Yeah. Yeah. Big Egg. Uh, were found guilty. Um, then they received $44.8 million in taxpayer funded [00:19:00] indemnity payments for exterminating flocks due to avian influenza. The birds were killed using the controversial killing method known as ventilation shut down, plus basically chicken gas chambers.

I think, um, speaking of. And he submitted chickens. Oh, this is dark. It’s getting really dark. Um, and then just recently in 2025, the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division has begun an investigation into Cal Maine. Something to do with, uh, profiteer allegations of profiteering and collusion from the bird flu outbreak at the expense of small farmers causing national egg shortage.

There was even a story I read where, uh, 280,000 cartons of eggs disappeared were [00:20:00] from a truck, some. Mafia, dude, stealing eggs. Uh, uh. I could, I didn’t write down the notes, but it’s a weird thing. Anyway, lots of, lots of really like eggs. It’s, it’s, it’s a dirty business, Tony, we were talking about.

Tony Kynaston: smuggling cartels

Cameron: yeah, It should have been like an episode of Sopranos. Yeah.

Hey, uh, you wanna buy some eggs? Hey, hey, you wanna buy a used egg? Um. Yeah. Look, um, I, I, I don’t know what’s going on, not making any allegations myself, but it’s, it’s, it’s a, there’s dirty egg stories all over the place involving these guys, but how they make money now just basically selling eggs.

Their FY 25 revenue mix, 67% comes from conventional eggs. 27.6% comes from specialty eggs. 5% comes from egg products and prepared foods. So mostly eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs and eggs. And I love [00:21:00] eggs. I eat eggs

often. Do you eat eggs? Oh, all the time. I’m eating eggs. You know, I need my protein for my kung fu. I’m loving eggs.

Oh, lots of eggs. How do you cook your eggs? What’s your favorite way of preparing your eggs these days? Tk.

Tony Kynaston: scramble but most days I can’t be bothered so I just fry them

Cameron: Well, I, I learned a tip for scrambled recently off a TikTok video from some chef and it’s killer. Absolutely killer. Just get a little microwave mug, you know, like a little whatever si thing. Um, crack your eggs into it, whisk ’em up. Take a little sliver of butter and like a teaspoon or a tablespoon of mayo in.

Boom, microwave for a minute. Pull ’em out, give it a little stir, put ’em in for another 30 seconds depending on how many eggs you got. Boom. Come out fluffy. Perfect.

No cleanup, just the mug. You don’t have to clean a fry pan or any of that nonsense. Just clean the, you know, the, whatever those things are made out of.[00:22:00]

What are those? What’s the, what’s the, those glass? So, no, no, no. It’s called something else. Anyway. Pyrex. Thank you. I was going Cyrex. No, that’s not right. Pyrex. Yeah. Quick clean of that. Boom. Bob’s your uncle. Perfect. But also, yeah, fried. So Friday night post kung food training. My standard is fried eggs, fried and butter.

You know, I make my own whole grain bread. Slice of that in the butter. Pull the eggs out, what’s left? Fry. Put the bread in, slip, flip, flip. Flop eggs on the bread. Bit of green. Tabasco on it after with some sea salt. Killer killer. Every, every Friday night, Chrissy and I are like, yeah, can’t wait to get home to eggs after four hours of kung fu.

Anyway, getting hungry. Haven’t eaten yet today. Um, prepared food. So this is a big thing. They, they recently finalized the acquisition of a company called Echo Lake Foods means nothing to me, but Americans might know the brand. Uh, that [00:23:00] brought in $70 million of sales in Q1. Their prepared food net sales jumped 839% to 83.9 million, up from 8.9 million in the prior quarter.

It’s still small out of their billions in sales, but. It was a big thing for them and, and prepared foods matter because it’s less commodity like. So one of the problems you have with selling raw shelled eggs is things like avian flu can come along and it can create massive disruptions to the market.

But, uh, value added formats like prepared foods, pancakes, omelets, uh, you know, Americans love their pre-prepared frozen. Get it, put it in the microwave type. Food things personally wouldn’t touch that with a 40 foot pole, but tend to do well in your, uh, Walmart. Uh, but for these guys, it sort of [00:24:00] smooths out demand, potentially improves margins.

Uh, nice like buffer when there’s problems in the, uh, egg space.

Tony Kynaston: Like the

Cameron: So

Tony Kynaston: in Australia anyway know the

Cameron: how so?

Tony Kynaston: rev milk Well

Cameron: No.

Tony Kynaston: think it was the Victorian state government but it could have been somewhere else regulated price of milk had to be sold for a certain amount

Cameron: Right.

Tony Kynaston: so the milk companies decided if they put a bit of water in the milk it wasn’t Milk and they could call it skim milk low fat milk

Cameron: Get out.

Oh,

Tony Kynaston: put a proper margin on it Put a big margin on it So

they

Cameron: because it’s skim.

Tony Kynaston: Hmm

Cameron: Less milk, more profit

Tony Kynaston: Correct

Cameron: Really. I mean, dirty. Dirty, but genius. Wow. Alright, so let’s talk about why it’s working and why it’s cheap. So, man, you’re gonna [00:25:00] love, you’re gonna love this when I get into the numbers. This thing throws off cash like you would not believe. Um, vertical integration, they own hatcheries feed mills, plus buying things like grain on scale, which keeps their unit costs Low.

Specialty eggs carry higher unit margins. Um. And have steadier demand for some reason. You know, people want their organic, if you’re into that kind of thing. Prepared foods, as I mentioned, less cyclical revenue, but they’ve got massive scale and footprint. They’re across 40 states, so they, um, have good deals with freight and supply.

They have lots of brands and licensing deals, again, means nothing to us as Aussies, but Americans might be familiar with. Eggland best or land Oex. Let’s try and give it an Irish spin. So it’s Irish eggs sound like pickled eggs. A lot of private label bread that they have too. Doing it for the big supermarket brands, but [00:26:00] it is, uh.

Uh, it does have this risk of HPI, which I had to look up. Highly pathogenic, avian influenza, basically bird flu. We know that’s been an ongoing problem for years now. Feed costs can go up and down. Egg spot prices. As we can see, uh, from the commodity chart I mentioned earlier, uh, way down, they can whipsaw the DOJ scrutiny overall of this adds some more risk to it.

You know, we don’t know what could happen with that. They could be hit with massive fines, who knows? But, you know, not our problem really. We play it as day by day, but that’s probably one of the reasons why the market might be discounting it at the moment. But once I get into the numbers, as I said, just crazy numbers.

So the price to operate in cash flow, which is obviously the thing that we always look at first, is [00:27:00] pretty low. It’s 3.31 times we look for something under seven. Some of the stocks that we’ve done recently on this show have been down to one, so this isn’t that good. But still, 3.3 times is good dividend yield of 8.84%, which is.

Very, very strong. It’s got an F score of nine out of nine,

Tony Kynaston: Oh Have

Cameron: which I don’t think we, no, I don’t think we’ve ever seen that before. Nine out of nine. Um,

Tony Kynaston: well managed

Cameron: Price to book is 1.7 times, it’s three year book value. CAGR is 32.35%. And when you look at the financial summary in stock, EDIA, I mean, uh, I don’t know.

It’s not only my eggs that are hard boiled. Um, in 2020 its total revenue was 1.3 billion. Um. It [00:28:00] goes up to 20 25, 4 0.2 billion. Uh, it’s the, the 2026 estimate is down a bit, 3.39, so it’s drop dropping a bit this year. Time to market, uh, uh, sorry. Time always go. Time to market butt and trialing. 12 months is 4.4.

It’s expected to be back a little bit this year, but it’s CAGR over five years is 25.8. Five, uh, 25.8% for revenue growth, operating profit, 1.27 million in 2020, which was obviously a, a bad year. Um, yeah. Uh, and avian flu and COVID. Lost money in 20 21, 20 6 million. Um, jumped to 1 44 in profit in 2022. 968 million in 2023.

Down to 312 million in 24, 1 0.5 billion in 2025, and [00:29:00] trailing 12 months is 1.6 billion in operating profit. So a 340%, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s sort of a messed up starting point, I guess COVID, but 314% CAGR over five years in terms of their operating profit. Net profit went from 18 million in 2020 to one point.

To 7 billion trialing 12 months. EPS reported has gone from 38 cents in 2020 to 20, uh, $26. Um, it just, the numbers are off the chart. Operating margin 2020 0.9% to 36% trailing 12 months. It’s like this last five years of just. They’ve been making money hand over fist. Now they are being investigated as part of this.

So, you know, a lot of people are looking at this and going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is, you’re making way too much money here. Something’s going on. Ah.

 From my perspective. [00:30:00] Wow. You know, leaving all that aside, um, they’re making money hand over fist. So that’s all I’ve got to say. I’ll just run through the numbers. Um, oh, I will also say that the Adams family.

 Um, how, you know, gotta do that. Um, currently controls 53.2% of the voting power thanks to Rupert Murdoch style super voting class A shares, but have about 12% of the economic ownership in the company. So. They get a point. We don’t do that for US stocks ’cause it’s hard to get into the system, but they would get an extra point in our system ’cause they control more than 10% of the business.

But even said that, um, they have a QAV score of 0.23, which is very strong. Um, average daily trade of about 91 million, uh, price to operating cashflow of 3.3 quality rank in. [00:31:00] Edia of 99. So we score them for that. Stock rank is below 90, so we don’t score them for that. But the F score, as I said, is a nine outta nine.

So they score for that price is below our IV number one. It’s below our IV number two. Um, it is not below. Price to book, what did I say? The price to book is 1.7 times, so it’s low but not low enough, but it does score for, uh, book value growth being positive

Tony Kynaston: We look for 1.3, don’t we, in the price

to

Cameron: 1.3 or 1.5.

Tony Kynaston: 1.3 or below.

Cameron: Oh right, so it’s low but not low enough. Um, doesn’t score for growth over PE being greater than [00:32:00] 1.5? Does score for PE greater than yield scores for yield greater than bank debt? Um. And um, obviously it’s got positive sentiment in and of itself, but the commodities are itself anyway. Total quality score from our perspective is 10 outta 13 or 77%.

We’d get an extra for the, uh, skin in the game. Family ownership, if we could score for that would do even better. But yeah, unfortunately. Commodity is a sell. So, uh, we’d have to wait. We’d wanna wait anyway I think for that to, to ride itself. But, um, that said, tremendous, tremendous, uh, little business. Um, sorry, by the way, I think I said market cap was, when I say the market cap was at the beginning, I said it was like.

6 billion or something. I think that was a maybe Australian 6 billion. Yeah, it’s Australia. I think the market cap [00:33:00] US dollars is what I should have quoted is about 4.6 billion USD. Um, so yeah, that’s it. Terrific little business.

Tony Kynaston: Looking at the share price too. If I’m looking at the right graph, it’s, a bit of a hold at the moment too. You wanna see, I’m guessing that’s come down a bit because of the egg price commodity coming down. So perhaps when the egg price commodity goes up, we’ll see the share price become, uh, viable again.

Cameron: Well, I don’t know because it’s above its latest byline in the ator. I mean, it, it did come back a bit from its. Highest peak, but it, it fell, but then it started to recover from that. So, um,

don’t know how you would

Tony Kynaston: price is below. Its monthly close.

Cameron: not in, not when I did a screenshot of the bread later this morning. I’ve got the previous month close. [00:34:00] $94. 10. Current price. 94 56.

Tony Kynaston: Oh,

Cameron: Are you looking at the bread later or are you looking at a different grant?

Tony Kynaston: I’m looking at the bread later and the current price is now 91 25.

Cameron: Oh wow.

Tony Kynaston: So

Cameron: So it’s, it’s dropped literally today. Okay.

Tony Kynaston: hmm.

Cameron: Oh yeah. Looking in Yahoo. 91 25. Wow. Okay. Alright, well my apologies. It has, why did it drop? But that’s a large drop today. I wonder what happened.

 I don’t see anything in the press releases or the news.

 Okay, there you go. Well, it’s the pulled pork curse. Um,

Tony Kynaston: Still interesting company.

Cameron: maybe. Maybe our Prime Minister Albo, maybe Albo, did a rare Earths and eggs deal with Donald Trump. Maybe he did a deal on egg tariffs from Australia or something.

Tony Kynaston: Well, I mean maybe, [00:35:00] maybe the DOJ is saying, well, we’re gonna find you unless you drop the price of eggs. ’cause that’s what the president wants. So bit of a do a deal situation.

Cameron: Okay, well then it’s a, it’s a, it’s a hold from us and hold on the commodity price. But that said, outside of that, again, I, I picked it because classic boring business, right? Classic Berkshire boring business eggs. But they got an egg moat.

Tony Kynaston: Yeah.

And they, you know, uh, how do those businesses grow? And you outline the growth in the last five years. and they’re obviously tackling it. They’re either buying other companies, they’re, um, getting into new markets with their pre-prepared meals, et cetera. So it’s possible they can, these companies can grow boring as they are.

Cameron: Yeah, although like. To be fair, you know, we were coming from a low base then [00:36:00] 2020, but if I look at their total revenue going back 10 years, 20 16, 1 0.9 billion 2017 had dropped to 1.1, up to 1.5 and 20 18, 1 0.4 in 2019. 1.35 in 2020 1.35 in 2021, then 1.77 2022 up to 4.2. So it, it tracked sort of, you know,

Tony Kynaston: Clockwise.

Cameron: Actually negative, it dropped down from 2016 till 2023. So whatever happened in 2023, um, maybe some acquisitions, maybe just. Co collusion. I dunno, the egg, I guess. Egg prices. That’s what happened. Egg prices went up.

Yeah.

For whatever reason. Legitimate or not, but uh, [00:37:00] yeah. So that’s all I got. That is Cal May. This

After hours Tony you wanna talk about school Za

Tony Kynaston: I do I I loved it Um you on you on Apple Plus there’s a documentary series and I’ve forgotten what it’s called But anyway it’s probably just called Scorsese It’s fantastic It’s his life I’ve only watched the first two episodes which are quite long but it’s um really high quality documentary Plenty of interviews not just with you know film stars Have been directed by Scorsese and Spielberg et cetera um people he grew up with which is really interesting He’s kind of been put into a diner in New York with his buddies from the gang when he was a kid and they’re going over old situations which is great But the second episode is about the making of mean Streets and Taxi driver And doesn’t live here anymore and it is fantastic And you there were things in there which I didn’t know and I I’ve watched [00:38:00] Taxi Driver a million times and loved De Niro and Scorsese But um I didn’t realize that they grew up two streets apart from each other in New York And uh like so De Niro’s being interviewed and Scorsese’s being interviewed and they said yeah we got together the cause you know we had a mutual friend and I was casting for mean streets and they said oh you gotta see this guy from New York He’s perfect for the role of Johnny and in Mean streets And they turned up and De Niro goes I know you And Scorsese goes I know you And then they were two streets apart They knew each other as kids De Niro was called Johnny the Hat by Scorsese’s Gang cause he used to get around in the hat And when you see mean streets Johnny wears hats all the time and mean streets and great And I interview one of Deni uh Scorsese’s childhood friends who was the role model for that character And he’s kind of reluctant to come on and be interviewed and uh but he’s you know super cool dunno how old he’s in his eighties or whatever And yeah it’s just really great to hear all these stories I [00:39:00] was telling you off air about how um de Niro made a movie for Roger Corman boxcar Bertha with David Carradine And it was a pretty straightforward rip off of Bonnie and Clyde he was out in in Hollywood in California trying to break into a film over there And he was getting friends with you know um and but also uh Milius and uh Coppler and all that that kind of crowd And he made this Coleman flick and they all said No we don’t wanna know you now you’re not gonna make money for make movies for money

Cameron: They all got started with Corman

Lucas and Coppola they they all worked for Corman Mm-hmm

Tony Kynaston: yeah possibly Um so course Scorsese goes by kick us back to New York He’s casting around what am I gonna do I still wanna make movies Cave Who um that famous Cinema Verite Director was still [00:40:00] a friend and he walked over Hug Score Stacey I love you but she gotta make a movie from your heart not for cash Scorsese says I’ve got this script about me growing up mean streets about people in my gang and my neighborhood and stuff Cave loves it You got a caster puts people together they get the neuro in Tel who’d been in Scorsese’s student cause like the in the first episode it goes through Scorsese like this uh sickly kid like all the other kids he’s growing up with they’re all going into Cora and they’re all becoming some kind of small businessman or whatever He’s really sickly can’t can’t really live in that world And he goes through he says like you know I almost died of asthma as a kid And I used to we used to live in a tenement three stories up and I used to see the world Below us Everyone was playing from up above And he went through and then showed all basically every one of his movies has a high shot [00:41:00] looking down that pans across from left to right which is him looking out of his window down at it it goes through all this kind of stuff It’s fantastic So he goes to NYU it’s like it’s up the block from where he was growing up Um falls in at the time of the Vietnam War protest Uh falls into the film school there gets mesmerized by a professor gets his friends go to shoot the Woodstock movie up in upstate New York And um but he’s never credited on the on the film and it wins a wins an Oscar for best director or best documentary And uh he’s really upset because they all go to California and get jobs in Hollywood and he’s left behind So it’s it’s always about him being to get to be a part of a group and being ostracized And and one of the people that’s interview they interview says you know you gotta understand all of Scorsese’s movies about outsiders who make it good That’s Scorsese retelling his story over and over and over again So about uh you know the Wolf of Wall [00:42:00] Street to make it big in Wall Street getting kicked out making lots of money It’s all these stories are about Scorsese it’s just it’s a really good documentary So he makes Mean Streets takes it to Cannes He’s he’s had to battle all the way with the studio cause it’s it’s it’s violent They don’t wanna release it They threaten to hold the print He threatens to break in and steal it The sensors threaten it with the next rating He comes up with the idea eventually to desaturate all the blood color in it back to Brown and make the final scene grainy where he shoots up the pimp Um and so that gives them the next rating below X So it’s RI think rather than X but it it gets a wider release They get they take it to Kahan at by this stage the NI and and Scorsese It just Shellshocked like you know what have we done No one wants to see this No one wants to release it we had to fight really hard to to get it to be released outside of porno you know theaters drive-ins Um [00:43:00] stay in their rooms and can they don’t go to any of the press Jody Foster who’s like 14 or 15 does all the all the press

Cameron: was

Tony Kynaston: the press for it in Cannes They bug out fly back to New York before the official showing get back to New York get a phone call Hey you won the Palm Door

Cameron: fly back

Tony Kynaston: No it didn’t it already happened And then um I I think I think it was you know some one of his buddies says Hey you gotta go and see the taxi driver opens in one cinema in New York He says Hey go and see it There’s a line around the block they’re not buying gold bullion They’re going to see Taxi driver and it becomes a big hit

It’s

Cameron: great film

Tony Kynaston: Mm

Cameron: Well the I looked it up It’s called Mr Scorsese the documentary series and it’s directed by Rebecca Miller AKA Lady Day Lewis cause she’s married to Daniel Day Lewis and she’s the daughter of Arthur Miller

was born in 1962 not [00:44:00] to Marilyn Monroe but uh his third wife Inga Morath an Austrian uh photographer Imagine imagine being Arthur Miller’s wife after Marilyn Monroe I mean how do you this a how do you compete with that Really very good Well I don’t have Apple tv but I guess I will see it at some point

Tony Kynaston: It’s worth watching

Cameron: I’m halfway through watching Elephant Man which I’ve never seen before

Tony Kynaston: Oh you’ve Never seen it Really

Cameron: seen it because in my head it’s not really a Lynch film

Tony Kynaston: very much Is Ridgefield

Cameron: Well yes it is As you watch it I mean it’s not as weird as a as a Lynch film I mean you go from a razorhead to that I mean it has nothing really apart from black and white and some of the uh the the just the weird sort of soundtrack There’s always like gas burning and you know all [00:45:00] that kind of really offsetting Yeah But Tony Hopkins is great isn’t it

Tony Kynaston: but it’s also it’s got a it’s a very stylized way of shooting it It’s like lots of closeups on people lots of zoom ins on people who who have almost stilted delivery emotional delivery It’s it’s not natural in the way it’s shot

Cameron: didn’t have that impression but it’s beautifully shot

I mean it’s I do think it’s more like straight story It’s more of a mainstream kind of lynch film But anyway really enjoying it and glad I finally sat down and watched it It just turned up on HBO Max or something and I was like oh God I’ve never seen this How can I have never seen this I gotta sit down and give it a watch I’ll tell you Tony Hopkins is always just I mean he’s just his ability to deliver a line is magnificent and and Bancroft is marvelous in it I think it was I mean Mel Brooks made it I saw Lynch [00:46:00] you know I’ve seen Lynch talk about how Mel Brooks gave him the opportunity to make it many many times and he was making films of the vehicle for Anne Bancroft and she’s marvelous in it Always loved Anne Bancroft but I can’t remember the last thing I saw her in But she’s terrific as is John Hurt

Tony Kynaston: Patrick Cargill from memory I think’s in it does a great role Was it Patrick Cargo one of the other English actors

Cameron: John Gil Good’s in it Um but

um

Tony Kynaston: owner of the Elephant man and displaying

Cameron: so that is um uh not Terry Jones um something Jones Um

Tony Kynaston: Anyway he’s

good

Cameron: he is fantastic yeah

Yeah

Tony Kynaston: Yeah

Cameron: Really Yeah Yeah He’s fantastic in it Um obviously difficult performance to get across that kind of humanity under all of that makeup Um the the Freddy Jones is the name of the actor who plays the [00:47:00] original owner who was then in Dune Lynch’s Dune

among other things Um but yes he’s a he’s a great old British actor

Tony Kynaston: Yeah

Cameron: What else have I got finished a robot and loved it loved it Slow start and I’m glad I persisted with it Oh is there

Okay

Tony Kynaston: Yeah

Cameron: well I mean I’m not sure if what I read was it felt like an anthology but it’s all the Susan Calvin story so I dunno Yeah

Tony Kynaston: more more Calvin stories Yeah

Cameron: well I think that was probably everything that I read cause she dies at the end of the last one that I read Um but it was uh great like the philosophical questions that he posed about alignment what we call alignment these days between robots and humans is uh it was I mean so brilliant He was so far ahead of his time thinking about the issues that we’re now dealing with in real life [00:48:00] in 20 25 75 years later Amazing And then when I finished that I started reading Gravity’s Rainbow Thomas Pinch on for the first time you ever read Pinch on

Tony Kynaston: I have yeah a couple of years ago actually Gravity’s Rainbow a couple of years ago but I’ve read another pinch on too

Cameron: Well I already had it in my books um and I think it was cause you told me about it and I don’t think I ever got around to starting it So I I I read a thing about him in the New York Times recently and they were talking about what a great author he was and uh I think I start I was gonna start one of his so yeah I’m enjoying it It’s uh intense

Tony Kynaston: it Yeah

Yeah

Cameron: Um

Tony Kynaston: I mean just for people out there who haven’t picked it up it’s got some crazy plot lines in there about the V one bombers targeting the bedrooms of an agent who’s been sleeping with different people in London and someone’s trying to work it out and work out the [00:49:00] probabilities of where it’s gonna land next And but that’s like that’s the plot and that’s as that’s as much as you get of it cause it just goes off into all sorts of different intricate and arcane meanderings

really

Cameron: An intense style he has Do you um do you know uh American comedian called Tim Robinson

Tony Kynaston: No

Cameron: stuff Um

uh

Tony Kynaston: there

called was it Tim Robinson or Tom Robinson

Cameron: possibly Dunno

yeah Tom Tom Robertson Hmm This guy was on SNL for a few years like over a decade ago but um he’s had a couple of shows that we’ve really loved One was called Detroiters and one was called I Think You Should Leave and he got a new show called The Chair Company which is only a couple of episodes in we’ve only seen the first episode but it’s terrific He he he tends to play really really angry [00:50:00] white men who just get angry over nothing and bit bit sort of John Cleese’s style like he’s just feels like the world is conspiring against him and he has this uncontrollable anger inside of him that comes out in inappropriate ways Um this new show the the Chair company he’s a office executive and he’s doing a big presentation and it goes well and he’s in front of the entire business and he sits on a chair and it breaks and and they everyone laughs at him and it sort of ruins his self-esteem And then he starts believing there’s a conspiracy uh from this chair company He starts hunting down this chair company and he can’t find him cause it’s just a name with like a registered office And he goes on this mad conspiratorial Hunt for this chair company that made him look bad Just taking out all of his you know white middle class anger on this chair company that um [00:51:00] made him look like a fool Anyway he’s got a particular style I dunno if you e everyone would appreciate it but we really love it Just this these guys that just are angry for no particular reason He’s got a good family wife kids they love him He’s got a good job Everything should be going great but he’s just angry for some reason and he can’t contain it Anyway I think that’s on Max Check it out

Tony Kynaston: Yeah It sounds a bit like Curb your enthusiasm

Cameron: It’s a bit like that but it’s different cause Larry’s just Larry’s just rich enough that he doesn’t need to care what people think

Tony Kynaston: Yeah

Cameron: This guy’s

Tony Kynaston: over

Cameron: does get over Yeah Yeah Um uh Harry Vander has got a new track out

Have did you catch that

Tony Kynaston: No

Cameron: Devil Loose he’s like 80 and he’s just come out with a new track I think you’d dig it It’s very sort of Vander and Youngie good riffs called Devil Loose He’s just talking about how crazy the [00:52:00] world is Yeah 80 years old just came out with a new single so I was you know we were talking that had that thing a a couple of months ago like the Triple J top Australian songs of all time kind of thing And I dunno how many must of those would be Vander and Young Tracks but there’d have to be at least

Tony Kynaston: Should be

Cameron: six 10 of those in the top 100 Um so I didn’t even know he was still around but that was great to see And then we have our kung fu grading this week back to Kung Fu Fight Club So we passed our pre-assessment I think the last time I was talking to you we were had to do our pre-assessment We passed that So this Friday into the ring two hours of getting punched in the face So uh that should be fun Well at the first hour of it is demonstrating all of our techniques in our form So we have to do baseball bat defense knife so people running at me with a baseball bat We need to defend ourselves against an [00:53:00] aluminum baseball bat being swung at our head

Tony Kynaston: I just had a vision of the Mabb Python sketch

John

Cameron: fish

or a baseball bat

Tony Kynaston: I’m gonna show you how to defend yourself with a banana Come out here a banana

Cameron: the whole thing The rest of the fruits Yeah Uh we have to do knife defense um you know a whole bunch of spurious Techniques that but then the second error is basically sparring So those of us that are grading and there’s only a couple of us are in the middle of the room and then they have a line of 20 black belts that come in one minute at a time and they cycle through and we just keep going We don’t get a break It’s just go go go People coming in and attacking you and you’re having to defend yourself against these people that are fresh You are knackered and it just goes on for Half an hour to an hour until you fall over And the sifu you know he he wants you to tire you out to see when [00:54:00] you’re tired and you have nothing left in the tank What can you what you know how how how can you uh defend yourself cause he says you know fights don’t necessarily they’re not necessarily over in a minute right Fights can go on a long time So what matters is when you are exhausted can you still keep your hands up and keep your guard up and move and handle the situation So I will get punched in the nose uh many times and it’s still broken so that should be fun

Tony Kynaston: what

Cameron: so that’s this week This is the second brown belt for us level six in our system So the next one is our black belt So next year we’ll be ready to do our black belt or the year after depending on how long we go

Tony Kynaston: is Chrissy gonna also be subject to exactly the same force you are being subjected to

Cameron: Yes

but

Tony Kynaston: it

females or they

female

Cameron: no no no no no no I mean look no one’s in there to kill us We’re not it’s not like deliberately full contact but it’s you know we’re wearing [00:55:00] gloves and mouth guards and stuff and she Chrissy got injured at two weeks ago We’re not trying to kill each other but you know adrenaline people throw stuff you miss stuff you misjudge you walk into things You know what we always get told is in a real fight if you’re lucky you might block one punch And he always says you know there it doesn’t matter how good you are you know there’s there’s a limited number of attacks you can block One’s always gonna get through right So you try and shut it down on the first one uh because everyone after that There’s a higher percentage that you’re gonna miss it and it’s gonna hit you But yeah Chrissy’s been punched and kicked and she’s always full of bruises and corked muscles and everything Like I am She hasn’t anything broken yet like I have But people will go harder on me because I’m me [00:56:00] everyone

Tony Kynaston: What you’ve antagonized everyone in the dojo have

you

Cameron: pretty much

Tony Kynaston: you wanna wear a T-shirt and they’re saying come on that all you got yeah yeah yeah yeah

Cameron: I do that all the time Thanks That’s Good

 

Cameron: Yeah

Tony Kynaston: Wow And you pay for that do you

Cameron: I do I do To get

beaten up

Tony Kynaston: You

Cameron: Oh Fox will be videoing it Yeah

Tony Kynaston: you should put it up And even so we can see how to fend ourselves from a knife attack or a baseball

attack and

Cameron: Alright

I’ll post some video of baseball Bat Knife bat defense Yeah

Tony Kynaston: Yeah so so no one’s gonna sneak up behind you with a baseball bat one punch GR grading over

Cameron: Uh no

 

Cameron: Yes Yeah yeah yeah Hard to defend yourself against sneak attacks though unless you’re a ninja Yeah

Tony Kynaston: I remember I remember being in Katon Street in Brisbane [00:57:00] one New Year’s Eve and someone coming out of the in the dark and just one punching me

Cameron: Really

Tony Kynaston: again Oh yeah yeah Is that’s what you gotta defend yourself against camp You don’t

Cameron: What happened to you

Tony Kynaston: Oh

Cameron: you did you

Tony Kynaston: stood up and he’d gone he ran back into his hiding hole wherever he was from and uh I stumbled Got up and I remember a a guy on the other side of the road at a table overlooking Katon Street that came racing over Yeah okay mate let me buy you a beer And took me over to his group of friends and looked after me and Yeah Had a few beers with them He used like we thought you were gone We thought you were gone

And I’m like

Cameron: Wow

Tony Kynaston: got up again It was like it was fine to me

must have

Cameron: So you guy didn’t mug you or anything He just didn’t like the

of you just

Tony Kynaston: to be the guy

guy

Cameron: tall ringers I mean you’re a walkin target really Aren’t you

Tony Kynaston: think just guys in general. There’s always some little guy out there who wants to [00:58:00]

Cameron: Have a crack Yeah Yeah yeah yeah

Tony Kynaston: When I

Cameron: Alright

you got any golf or horse news

Tony Kynaston: News. I’ve got, uh, Qualo Doto running tomorrow, which people may not hear in time, but Wednesday at Geelong Double Market was scratch from the Avoca Cup on Saturday and she’ll run on Friday night at Moon Valley.

So,

Cameron: wins lately

Tony Kynaston: nah, BES was a second with Lake Forest a couple of weeks ago, so that’s not too bad.

Cameron: Well good luck Hope you get a winner

Tony Kynaston: Yeah. And Steve’s in, Steve MA’s in double Market with me, so it’ll be doubly good if we can get a win.

Cameron: I was gonna when we were talking to Gabriel and he was talking about he was talking at some point about horses and uh you know I know we were talking about horses we were talking about Steve Mabb and I was gonna point out at one point that you and Steve had a horse but I the opportunity didn’t uh rise [00:59:00] Arise

All right Have a good week everyone

Tony Kynaston: Yep.

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