Australian Super and the US tech bubble

[HurleyHepsHird]

Heavily over leveraged despite numerous warnings and all common sense.

As far as I know, concerns have been expressed to a number of funds over lack of diversification of their portfolios to European markets and funds like AustralianSuper have seemingly raised the middle finger and doubled down.

An interesting and worrying situation.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australian-super-caught-ai-bubble-113000907.html

Super funds have bet at least $143b on AI. See which funds are most exposed

Investors say this is not a rerun of the 2000s dotcom bubble, despite the soaring valuations of some of the world’s biggest technology companies.

www.afr.com

Major super funds count exposure to billion-dollar US solar collapse

AustralianSuper, HESTA and QIC have hundreds of millions of dollars invested in Pine Gate Renewable, which has slid into bankruptcy owing more than $9 billion.

www.afr.com

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

Most renewable companies are only viable due to tax credits / subsidies. They are historically a horrible investment.

Not many investments have been such a spectacular failure that if you invested $10,000 in 2008, it would be worth less than $5,000 today. This is the clean energy fund and benchmark.

 

[Demonic Ascent]

Most renewable companies are only viable due to tax credits / subsidies. They are historically a horrible investment.

Not many investments have been such a spectacular failure that if you invested $10,000 in 2008, it would be worth less than $5,000 today. This is the clean energy fund and benchmark.

View attachment 2479856

But if you invested in June 2012 or 2020 you'd be up?

 

[nut]

When the US government starts buying shares …..

Half my super is fixed interest now

Charles Schwab

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

But if you invested in June 2012 or 2020 you'd be up?

You'd still be an idiot investing in this. Even the broader S&P has grown 512% since 2012.

 

[Saint]

The "International share" component of my Super fund (a*are) was massively invested in these AI companies, and therefore exposed. They've made massive gains in the past couple of years, but I worry about how long it might continue.

When Tesla drops because it isn't a tech company, but a bog-average car company, will the others go down as well?

I moved some of my Super into Defensive stocks because I fear a downturn, but I'm almost certainly a year early or more.

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

When the US government starts buying shares …..

Half my super is fixed interest now

Charles Schwab

You should have put half your super into Nvidia. You would have gotten your yearly 5% return in one day.

 

[Saint]

You should have put half your super into Nvidia. You would have gotten your yearly 5% return in one day.

Here's the fundamentals.

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, they all make big revenue, have done for a long time on solid products.

Nvidia are newbies, because they have the best AI chips and everyone's buying them. But their revenue isn't that high compared to their market cap. That ratio is bonkers. But it's growing 60% per annum so far, so why not bet on their continued growth?

When will another company copy or improve upon their chips? Their value could blow up pretty quick if that happens, even if revenue stays up, you would expect the price to come down.

Meta is still making money from social media. They're still showing revenue growth, but growth rate of users is tapering, and how much of that is bots??

Tesla is a car company. How is Amazon only worth 2.38tn with $700bn revenue if Tesla is worth 1.3tn with only 96bn revenue? It's revenue barely grew in 2024. And they're paying the boss a trillion as well.

(Broadcom is another left off the list but is probably in your Super and more closely linked to the other 6 stocks than Tesla is.)

 

[nut]

You should have put half your super into Nvidia. You would have gotten your yearly 5% return in one day.

19 companies make up 50% of the value of the SP500

 

[Drought Break]

Tips for international ETF”s? See a lot of negativity on US stocks atm. Lot of analysts reckon Asian markets will be better in the future

 

[Sydney Kicker]

Most renewable companies are only viable due to tax credits / subsidies. They are historically a horrible investment.

Not many investments have been such a spectacular failure that if you invested $10,000 in 2008, it would be worth less than $5,000 today. This is the clean energy fund and benchmark.

View attachment 2479856

Tax credits and subsidies. What B/s. If you want to look at subsidies look first to the fossil fuel industry.

I suspect investors underestimated the risk posed by science denying right wing Governments (Trump, Morrison et al) who continue to defy all logic and prop up fossil fuels at the expense of renewables. Even despite this, renewable growth in the last few years has almost been exponential and points clean energy producers becoming the new blue chip stocks as we move into the next decade.

 

[PiCkLeJuiCe]

Tax credits and subsidies. What B/s. If you want to look at subsidies look first to the fossil fuel industry.

I suspect investors underestimated the risk posed by science denying right wing Governments (Trump, Morrison et al) who continue to defy all logic and prop up fossil fuels at the expense of renewables. Even despite this, renewable growth in the last few years has almost been exponential and points clean energy producers becoming the new blue chip stocks as we move into the next decade.

Since 2008, the US has had a democrat president in 12 of the 17 years.

 

[Sydney Kicker]

Since 2008, the US has had a democrat president in 12 of the 17 years.

You have to understand risk. The climate denial by (mainly) right wingers means that even when Biden brought in policy in support of environmental investment, the risk that Trump or another conservative would pull the plug acted as an investment anchor. Will likely be the same in Australia now since the Coalition keeps threatening to prop up coal fired power stations and go nuclear if they get back in charge.

 

[HurleyHepsHird]

The "International share" component of my Super fund (a*are) was massively invested in these AI companies, and therefore exposed. They've made massive gains in the past couple of years, but I worry about how long it might continue.

When Tesla drops because it isn't a tech company, but a bog-average car company, will the others go down as well?

I moved some of my Super into Defensive stocks because I fear a downturn, but I'm almost certainly a year early or more.

Sadly, not looking so great.

If our politicians were focusing on things like the broader social good, this might actually be on their radar.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02-10/ai-disrupts-tech-boom-shares-drop/106323844

 

[HurleyHepsHird]

https://archive.is/t9UJC

With end of the Yen carry trade and massive ongoing liquidity requirements for AI/tech giants to meet their capex goals, a) how are they going to find easy liquidity to keep this spending race going snd b) what are the plans on how to even make returns on such dramatic infrastructural investment?

And for the losers, there will be an eye watering value in stranded assets.

It's time for Australian funds to de-leverage and do so quickly. Even if that upsets the Musks and Trumps.