FidelityConnects: Future of advice – AI possibilities with Darren Lekkerkerker and Ben Holton
Join Darren Lekkerkerker, Portfolio Manager, and Ben Holton, Portfolio Manager and Analyst, for a discussion on how Fidelity's investment management team is investing in AI, and using AI in their day-to-day.
Transcript
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Joining us here at the table right now is portfolio manager Darren
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Lekkerkerker and equity research analyst Ben Holton.
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Warm welcome to you both in this extended webcast we're having.
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Thanks for being here.
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Thank you, Pamela. I'm excited to be here and talk about AI today.
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I think it's the most important thing in the stock market right now.
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It really is. Ben, actually, you guys worked
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together for a very long time. You've now run your fund for 10 years, happy
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birthday, by the way.
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Thank you very much.
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But you guys have known each other maybe even longer than that, have you?
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How does that work?
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I don't even know how long I've known Ben but we knew each other before Ben
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came to Fidelity. Ben was actually a sell-side analyst
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at one of the investment banks in Canada and we had a really good conversation
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about some of the stocks I own.
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We identified him as a really bright analyst and we wanted to hire him here at
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Fidelity. Then Ben sat across from me, he covered software so it was great, we
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had a great daily conversation.
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Yeah, it seems like it's flown by but it's 14 years now.
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You guys work together how?
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Maybe we just sort of talk about this because Ben, software is the area that
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you research the most. We're actually going to talk about how software in some
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ways has taken the biggest hit because of AI.
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When you guys sit down, there is a coffee, I don't know if you still sit two
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seats away but how do you work together?
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I cover U.S. software. It's a huge part of Darren's benchmark.
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It's feeding him what's happening in the market, what stock ideas there are
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and working with him to work on derivative plays as well.
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It's not just tech.
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Are there other areas that tech is influencing that as a diversified
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portfolio manager he can jump to?
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You're looking across North America.
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This is the U.S. software industry that you're covering but as you say, that
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software, or now AI, is used in absolutely everything.
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Natural resources is also a huge area that you've come up through and managed
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for a long, long time. I wonder, put together a little bit about what you
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do versus what Mark actually manages, which is different,
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but in some ways complementary.
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First off, I've known Mark for a long time.
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We started as an analyst together working in Boston and
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we were both, along with our kind of core team there, away from home
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so we got to know each other really well. Actually, I had dinner with Mark last
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night. I think he's a great guy and, obviously, has great performance.
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I am different as an investor, as a portfolio manager.
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I think Mark is a growth manager, maybe the best growth manager, by the
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way, but he's a growth manager.
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He's focused more on investing in the leading edge, higher growth companies,
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privates. We had Annie, the private analyst.
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Do you invest in privates?
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No, I don't invest in privates. I don't like to be gated.
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I don't like to own illiquid things.
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I also just kind of find that those companies are too early stage for me to
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invest in. I'd rather invest in more mature companies where I can
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think ...
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better analyze the company and think that the moat around the company is more
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durable.
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Diversified portfolio manager, you mentioned that, Ben, we're talking sort of
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about this style of making sure you're exposed to AI but also
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there's a diversification. We'll talk about markets in a second.
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How do you think that in your top 10, Darren, for
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instance, I mean, there are the big names or the household names in many cases.
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They are the Nvidias, the Microsofts so you're heavily invested and
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making sure that you're catching that.
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The diversification, I wonder if you can just kind of speak to that, Ben,
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because you see it across other fields as well.
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It's what's going into every other industry.
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Obviously I spend a lot of time on the big software names but it's not just
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the Mag Seven.
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We've got picks and shovels below that, we've got hardware analysts across the
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world that feed Darren ideas, and then other analysts in
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other sectors. Darren's done a great job
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extrapolating what we're seeing in the tech world to what we are seeing in
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other areas.
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Let's go into sort of the buildout of data centres because that captures a
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lot. I'll first ask you about the markets because the
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buildout of data centre is exactly what we think everyone's spending and
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maybe is overspending. This is the question, isn't it?
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Is there an overspend on data centres?
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Are we going to have too many? Is there going to be ultimately a glut from the
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demand that we see right now.
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You're invested in that, what do you think on that market narrative?
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You're right, there's huge spend on AI, there's a huge spend across
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the whole value chain from semiconductors to data
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centre construction and the services that go into it like power and stuff, the
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downstream industries.
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Maybe we do overspend or get a glut but I don't think we're anywhere
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close to it yet. I think there's lot more to go.
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I'm going to ask Ben if he wants to comment.
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Listen, Darren and I were talking to one of the large hyperscalers yesterday
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and they wanted to drive home that they're not
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a field of dreams situation where they're building it for hope.
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They were stressing they're building what they're building for contracted
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revenue.
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This demand is right there, it's real, it is on a contract.
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Yes, the demand is all contracted and not only that,
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they are trying to build as fast as they can and they can't keep up.
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The demand is accelerating faster than they can build.
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That is a problem in this market.
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Apps can go viral in a day, in a weekend.
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It takes a lot longer to scale the physical infrastructure needed to support
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them.
I'm having trouble downloading Sora still.
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Yes, I've got a code, I can get it to you.
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Can you help with that? It's really frustrating because you keep thinking,
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well, maybe they figured it out this week. No, not yet.
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I can get you an invite for that.
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Okay, the demand. That's sort of what you're investing into.
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Take it into the buildout itself.
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Data centres need the power, they need the whole infrastructure story.
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Take us sort of through how you're looking at that and invested in it.
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Sure. Just another comment on the prior topic.
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Last week all the hyperscalers reported.
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One theme that was constant
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during all those reports was that CapEx is going up and it's being
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driven by AI spend, mostly on semiconductors but also on
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networking and also people, other aspects.
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That's definitely a theme. We saw Mark Zuckerberg saying he's more willing
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to over-invest rather than take the higher risk would be to
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under-invest.
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We had companies talk about how there's too much demand, they're investing
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for the demand. We saw all three cloud providers, Microsoft,
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Amazon and Google Cloud announced accelerating revenue
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growth in their cloud so we are seeing more demand.
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Now, your question was how do I invest across the chain?
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You have to think about who's been the primary winner to this point, it's
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been Nvidia. They have the tools
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for AI, they've got the chips, they've
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got the software, they've got that ecosystem so they have
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the best product in the world, the most pricing power.
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It's really an amazing company. I know the stock's gone like this but the
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earnings have gone even more like this. The P/E has derated, earnings
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of more than 10 bag, I think, over the past three, four years
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and the company is pretty amazing. Actually half the revenue is in free cash
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flow right now so it's been a great company.
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I do own the hyperscalers.
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They're going in different directions.
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Networking companies are increasing their spend of
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the data centre, they're being used to increase the utilization
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of the GPUs.
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We're seeing increasing spend, more services, higher margins there.
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That's been a very attractive place to invest.
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Some of the other areas are how are we going to power and build all these
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data centres?
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You look at other areas like industrials, utilities for the
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power. Industrials, think about companies that make giant yellow construction
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equipment to build these things.
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They're also benefiting from a resource boom and adding services.
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We're seeing different opportunities.
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We've seen a whole nuclear renaissance. It's going to take years to build and
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power these things but what about price of uranium, what about nuclear
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services? Atkins Realis has a nuclear service business that's in my top
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10. It's been a very good stock this year.
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We've seen nuclear deals all over the place.
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Again, they'll take time to get up and running, literally, but they're all over
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the place. On the ecosystem piece of things, Ben, I wonder if you can
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take us inside the enterprise a little bit, the deployment,
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some of the fears and how systems are being built internally sort of on an
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enterprise side of things.
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You think of Fidelity, you think of any big company that has data, you want to
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be very careful about how you're using that
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so maybe a bit slower on that? Just comment on how that's happening.
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You're right on both pieces, meaning the data privacy and data
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security is paramount, especially for regulated industries like ours.
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Nothing trumps that.
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Once we have that solved then it's what do you build?
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We are seeing enterprises move faster on AI than they have in
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prior generations, prior tech shifts.
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Now, that doesn't mean it's lightning fast, there's still lots of roadblocks
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but we internally have a bunch of tools that Darren and I can use
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and that more broadly the organization can use.
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We had our head of emerging tech in giving us a presentation.
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We try and learn from what we're doing internally.
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What we're building, what we were building and then a solution came out so we
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switched to buying it.
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There's a million little use cases all across the organization.
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I think that's one of the confusing questions right now is where is all this
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demand coming from.
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Nobody seems to really answer that I noticed.
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Exactly, because outside of OpenAI and Anthropic, which are the two
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biggest users out there, okay, what's next?
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A lot of that is these kind of dispersed use cases that
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might themselves be using OpenAI in some form
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but it's like you have a shared mailbox, shared email inbox, can
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you use an AI agent to sort where those emails should
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go?
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Mark Schmehl was using that example as just sort of speeding everything
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up and making everything more efficient, basically.
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That example is a person had to go through that mailbox and sort this
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email goes to Darren, this email it goes to Ben, this email goes to compliance.
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That's not high value time spent,
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nor is it fast.
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AI can do that instantly so it ends up being better customer service because
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those answers get answered faster. They get to the right person faster.
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You think about that, we've got multiple use cases like that internally.
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You then scale that out to multiple companies and all of
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those little bits start adding up to chewing GPU time.
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They're kind of unseen in a way.
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I guess they are measurable ultimately but I wonder if you can just speak to
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that because they're sort of the quiet things that are going on that you don't
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quite measure. We're always looking to see when kind of the SG&A side of it,
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like, yup, it's accretive to earnings.
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I'll ask you and Darren about whether that is there.
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Do you see that at this point?
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I think right now there's a big debate about what is the ROI
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on AI spend.
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I think right now you're not seeing it in terms of incremental traditional
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ROI metrics but you are seeing it in terms of accelerating revenue growth.
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Well, you are seeing it actually at some companies, the semiconductor and the
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networking companies, but I guess maybe my answer was focused on the
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hyperscalers that are doing the bulk of the spending.
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Actually, you're seeing it a lot in the downstream businesses like industrial,
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like machinery businesses, construction, just because they're getting massive
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amounts of revenue, higher margins.
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It depends on, I guess, where you look in the stats.
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Any comments?
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I think on the efficiency side it's very use case specific.
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One of the biggest use cases out there right now is software development and
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basically a coding assistant.
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Now, you take an average software developer, pretty highly paid.
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These tools can cost 60 to $100 a month, some even
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premium so even less.
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That is a fraction of the value created if you're saving these people
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30% of their time or increasing their output by 30%.
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These are just no-brainer applications and that's where you're seeing
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real value be created.
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Darren, again, coming back to your style of investing which would be
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quality, slightly more conservative than what Mark was talking about, they're
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hunting for the next killer app.
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I mean, who isn't on some level but they're actively looking at the private
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markets for that.
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Again, how does everything that we're talking about set up for a slightly
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more conservative approach? You're going where everything is moving in the
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markets but how are you protected, I guess, more so than being
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purely growth.
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You're right, I'm more conservative than Mark. I focus on the high quality
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investment style. I'm really looking for businesses where I can see good
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fundamentals, a great business but also more of an economic moat around
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it. I would say that probably I would own
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larger companies I would think than him.
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I don't do the privates so...
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What about the natural resources?
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We talked a little bit about the nuclear side of things, that's an area of
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interest for you as a mode of power.
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Outside power, I mean, what about copper?
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They keep saying copper actually isn't going to be that used in the data
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centres as it is in, say, housing.
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Go to the mining, minerals, the other types of natural resources that
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get included in this story.
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Resources is seeing a boom this year, that's for sure.
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Probably gold is up, it doesn't have that much to do with AI, it has more to do
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with the diversification of the U.S.
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dollar trade and the thoughts around debasement of fiat currencies
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globally. That's seeing a boon right now.
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The miners are actually reporting, some of them reported this morning and
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they're straight up.
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They're actually getting good results because diesel's down and so they're
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actually seeing higher margins and they're being fiscally prudent.
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They're actually buying back their shares so we're seeing those go up.
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Copper, I think about 1% of demand we could see from AI
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data centre use. it's not a ton but It's
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something because typically you have a surplus deficit that's around
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1, 2% so if you take that away it really matters.
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It's really being driven more by a lot of mishaps at large mines around the
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world which is constraining supply.
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So it's not necessarily the AI story yet at
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this point.
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That's right.
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Hello, investors. We'll be back to the show in just a moment.
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DialoguesFidelity podcasts available on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever
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else you get your podcasts. Now back to today's show.
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Anything else in natural resources that you want advisors to know, investors to
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know, that is of interest that either ties to this or doesn't tie to this
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because you're looking at other things as well.
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I run the mining material side of the fund.
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On that side I primarily own gold and copper
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miners as well as aggregates, companies that own quarries.
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I think of them as sort of cyclical compounders within materials.
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My co-PM, Joe, one of the things he owns that's related to AI is
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uranium and nuclear services companies.
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He's also done a great job investing in, I think, oil refining is very
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tight as well as oil services.
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Really interesting.
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Take us back a little bit to how we're going to
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in our lives use it. It seems to change week to week, maybe not week to week,
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but over the course of sort of a year.
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Google's a good example of how we all get adjusted to using AI
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differently. At one point for a company they needed to bring
16:38.530 --> 16:42.301
a whole bunch of consultants in and spend some time on how the company worked
16:42.301 --> 16:46.271
and then perhaps implement software that you would cover
16:46.271 --> 16:48.540
and look into.
16:48.540 --> 16:50.609
How different is that now?
16:50.609 --> 16:54.046
A few different avenues there. On how are we going to use it, if you're not
16:54.046 --> 16:56.882
using it personally you're already behind.
16:56.882 --> 17:00.986
You should be using OpenAI, ChatGPT, you
17:00.986 --> 17:04.656
should using Gemini. Play with these things because this is where the world's
17:04.656 --> 17:08.460
going. Then try and translate to that, wow, this is really good in my personal
17:08.460 --> 17:12.197
life, how can I push for this in my corporate life?
17:12.197 --> 17:16.335
Obviously, there's more roadblocks there that need to be cleared but it
17:16.335 --> 17:17.936
is something that people should be doing because...
17:17.936 --> 17:23.042
Can you trust it with getting your banking out of the way,
17:23.042 --> 17:25.644
can you trust it?
17:25.644 --> 17:27.413
I think you need to be smart about it.
17:27.413 --> 17:29.281
There's certain use cases, yes.
17:29.281 --> 17:34.319
There's certain use cases, no.
17:34.319 --> 17:36.388
Can you be more specific? Which one is don't use that one?
17:36.388 --> 17:40.325
ChatGPT has, in my
17:40.325 --> 17:43.228
personal life, largely supplanted Google searches.
17:43.228 --> 17:46.131
That's giving me answers.
17:46.131 --> 17:47.599
But as the assistant.
17:47.599 --> 17:52.471
Yes — well, instead of going down a rabbit hole through Google,
17:52.471 --> 17:55.908
your 10 blue links and then having to find that and read each one, you can now
17:55.908 --> 17:59.878
get an answer and then ask questions, ask follow-up
17:59.878 --> 18:02.314
questions without it being a new Google search.
18:02.314 --> 18:05.050
You're not starting from zero every time.
18:05.050 --> 18:07.286
There is context about this.
18:07.286 --> 18:10.856
I spent a bunch of time this weekend trying to get Halloween tattoos off.
18:10.856 --> 18:15.461
It was a very good use for that.
18:15.461 --> 18:16.195
Is it vinegar?
18:16.195 --> 18:18.797
Baby oil.
18:18.797 --> 18:22.101
And it remembered my kids' names and said, if this is for your kids use this,
18:22.101 --> 18:25.871
use baby oil not this medical adhesive remover.
18:25.871 --> 18:27.606
That is a useful thing.
18:27.606 --> 18:31.543
But it's that kind of thing that you need to be exposed to
18:31.543 --> 18:33.612
and just start using it.
18:33.612 --> 18:38.217
In the corporate world I think there's different approaches.
18:38.217 --> 18:42.254
When there isn't something that exists you are seeing companies try and
18:42.254 --> 18:46.225
build their own. We're so early
18:46.225 --> 18:50.596
in this that the solution for your specific problem might
18:50.596 --> 18:54.666
not exist yet so you have to will it into existence with a bunch of building
18:54.666 --> 18:59.204
blocks. Now, we internally have done that
18:59.204 --> 19:02.541
and then something catches up and we're like, okay, it makes more sense to buy
19:02.541 --> 19:06.545
that than spend our time developing something where there's
19:06.545 --> 19:10.582
a better package solution that costs much less than our own
19:10.582 --> 19:14.720
support. This, though, is also
19:14.720 --> 19:18.690
becoming tools to deploy software, meaning you used to
19:18.690 --> 19:22.661
have to bring an army of consultants in when you wanted to launch a new
19:22.661 --> 19:23.896
enterprise application.
19:23.896 --> 19:27.199
You would price it per user in the company, for instance, what do they call
19:27.199 --> 19:30.002
that?
19:30.002 --> 19:32.337
Bums in seat [crosstalk].
19:32.337 --> 19:34.273
There's per seat pricing for the software but there would also be per hour
pricing
19:34.273 --> 19:38.343
for these consultants. Now what you're seeing is a lot of these tools
19:38.343 --> 19:42.447
be automated so that you don't necessarily need as many IT
19:42.447 --> 19:46.385
service professionals spending months to do something that
19:46.385 --> 19:48.887
technology can do in days.
19:48.887 --> 19:53.058
That makes this whole flywheel move
19:53.058 --> 19:57.196
faster. Often, and this is tragic, you see a lot time
19:57.196 --> 20:01.133
in enterprise software the deployment cost costs more than
20:01.133 --> 20:02.000
the software does.
20:02.000 --> 20:05.437
So there's a winner and loser in there, I mean, clearly.
20:05.437 --> 20:08.874
Yeah, and some of that debate is not settled.
20:08.874 --> 20:12.945
We're seeing that within software names the market is
20:12.945 --> 20:17.382
bifurcated into AI winners and AI losers, or I think more aptly perceived
20:17.382 --> 20:22.154
AI winners and AI losers, but to Darren's Google example, that
20:22.154 --> 20:23.655
sentiment can shift quickly.
20:23.655 --> 20:27.693
Well, and also last year, I mean, we were talking about those big
20:27.693 --> 20:31.763
companies in the world that have incredible data to share
20:31.763 --> 20:35.701
through AI and can they charge for it, how do you monetize that in
20:35.701 --> 20:37.502
a new world.
20:37.502 --> 20:40.872
I think at that point you were thinking there are areas where you're kind of
20:40.872 --> 20:45.410
holding onto the bicycle railings and thinking which way will this go, or
20:45.410 --> 20:49.081
will the data just be free and then actually what they do isn't as easy to
20:49.081 --> 20:51.583
monetize. Things have changed, haven't they?
20:51.583 --> 20:55.821
That's right. I think there was one company that I owned,
20:55.821 --> 20:59.958
that I no longer own, that had a lot of proprietary
20:59.958 --> 21:04.796
data within one very specific vertical market.
21:04.796 --> 21:08.834
I still think they are an AI winner but I also think that
21:08.834 --> 21:12.070
there was probably going to be a little bit more competition for them.
21:12.070 --> 21:16.108
Since they had done really well once you realize your investment
21:16.108 --> 21:18.443
thesis it's time to move on.
21:18.443 --> 21:21.246
It's time to move on and that's how you make some of your decisions on that.
21:21.246 --> 21:23.215
Go to the consumer for us.
21:23.215 --> 21:27.219
Much in the way that we converse and the consumer finds its
21:27.219 --> 21:30.389
way in the world, they don't need to go to websites anymore, they can just do a
21:30.389 --> 21:34.860
search and probably buy it within whatever version of AI
21:34.860 --> 21:37.429
search they're using. It's generated for them.
21:37.429 --> 21:41.466
They just make a point of you can pay
21:41.466 --> 21:43.201
for it there.
21:43.201 --> 21:45.270
How is the consumer coming to this?
21:45.270 --> 21:48.340
Are there investment opportunities there for you, Darren?
21:48.340 --> 21:52.944
Sure. One thing that's really interesting with the consumer and how they
21:52.944 --> 21:56.715
interact with companies is agentic commerce.
21:56.715 --> 22:00.686
Shopify reported yesterday and this was
22:00.686 --> 22:04.923
a theme discussed on their earnings call, they actually have a relationship
22:04.923 --> 22:07.159
with ChatGPT.
22:07.159 --> 22:09.594
It's kind of interesting to see how this will play out.
22:09.594 --> 22:14.299
One example would be instead of putting in a Google search like
22:14.299 --> 22:18.236
where do I get the best belt or who makes the best belt, you ask your
22:18.236 --> 22:22.341
AI agent. It's kind of similar to asking a friend who's an expert on
22:22.341 --> 22:25.277
belts and they say, actually it's this random company in Italy you never heard
22:25.277 --> 22:29.314
of, and then maybe use Shopify or another way
22:29.314 --> 22:31.183
to buy it.
22:31.183 --> 22:33.618
We'll see how that trends.
22:33.618 --> 22:37.589
I would say more generally aside from AI on a macro side I feel like the
22:37.589 --> 22:41.593
consumer has been really mixed and it's an area that I do have some
22:41.593 --> 22:45.731
concerns on. There's been some talk of a K-shaped economy
22:45.731 --> 22:50.469
where the wealthier people in the economy are
22:50.469 --> 22:54.473
feeling the wealth effect of a higher priced house and a higher
22:54.473 --> 22:57.409
priced stock portfolio are spending really well.
22:57.409 --> 23:00.946
Did you know that 10% of the U.S.
23:00.946 --> 23:04.249
consumers, the top 10% of income spends 50% of the purchases.
23:04.249 --> 23:07.052
It's quite skewed, actually.
23:07.052 --> 23:12.023
Maybe the bottom 50% are not doing as well.
23:12.023 --> 23:15.227
It's really interesting and maybe that's why we can ...
23:15.227 --> 23:19.531
I don't want to stray to politics but maybe that's why other people are being
23:19.531 --> 23:21.533
elected. It's pretty interesting.
23:21.533 --> 23:24.469
That is really interesting and the intersection there is really interesting.
23:24.469 --> 23:28.440
Can it be ultimately for the rest of consumers who
23:28.440 --> 23:31.743
are struggling, is there a deflationary effect with AI?
23:31.743 --> 23:34.880
This is kind of a high level question but ultimately are things more available
23:34.880 --> 23:37.616
and therefore the competition brings the price down.
23:37.616 --> 23:39.418
I mean, is there a deflationary element, I'm going to put that to you, for the
23:39.418 --> 23:41.787
consumer.
23:41.787 --> 23:45.724
I think technology is generally always deflationary.
23:45.724 --> 23:49.227
We're too early in it now to see a real impact.
23:49.227 --> 23:53.432
I think where you are seeing it is companies capturing it as margin rather
23:53.432 --> 23:56.735
than passing it on as lower pricing.
23:56.735 --> 23:58.770
Eventually that might get competed away.
23:58.770 --> 24:02.841
If you're the only one in the market benefiting you can capture the value.
24:02.841 --> 24:07.145
If everyone is doing it it starts to bring prices down.
24:07.145 --> 24:09.481
So that's a to come, something to watch.
24:09.481 --> 24:11.316
I think so.
24:11.316 --> 24:15.220
Let's go to the economy just a little bit, come back to your point there.
24:15.220 --> 24:17.289
You're investing in the economy that we're in.
24:17.289 --> 24:20.192
We know that there are struggles for Canada.
24:20.192 --> 24:23.528
How much are you more towards the U.S.?
24:23.528 --> 24:26.665
It's an extraordinary year for the Canadian stock market but just tell us about
24:26.665 --> 24:28.700
the balance of how you're invested right now.
24:28.700 --> 24:31.870
I think for the North American fund it's pretty close to the longer term target
24:31.870 --> 24:34.739
of 70% U.S., 30% Canada.
24:34.739 --> 24:36.508
You're right, Canada's done better than the U. S.
24:36.508 --> 24:40.745
this year both in terms of the currency as well as the S&P
24:40.745 --> 24:43.114
TSX outperforming the S&P 500.
24:43.114 --> 24:47.152
In terms of the 30% of Canada, I wouldn't think of that as
24:47.152 --> 24:51.823
30% of a Canadian fund. I would think of that as the best of Canada.
24:51.823 --> 24:56.761
I actually have the ability to go to 0% Canada if I want
24:56.761 --> 25:00.699
but I typically own the best names that I can
25:00.699 --> 25:03.502
find in Canada.
25:03.502 --> 25:05.971
That's how I think of the fund.
25:05.971 --> 25:09.207
I was just going to ask you broadly what sectors are those?
25:09.207 --> 25:12.043
Are they sectors? I know you stock pick but I'm just curious.
25:12.043 --> 25:15.113
I would say it's technology.
25:15.113 --> 25:18.250
Shopify is in the top 10.
25:18.250 --> 25:22.420
I would say it is financial services in terms of alternate investment
25:22.420 --> 25:26.491
managers. I would say its net computer hardware networking
25:26.491 --> 25:30.428
stocks. I would say that it is mining and materials
25:30.428 --> 25:34.699
and we've talked about gold, we've talked about copper, these
25:34.699 --> 25:37.202
are things that I'm bullish on.
25:37.202 --> 25:40.272
Oh, and retail.
25:40.272 --> 25:44.442
I actually have a big winner in retail in the fund this
25:44.442 --> 25:48.146
year. For me timing was paramount.
25:48.146 --> 25:51.283
Think back to the tariffs, we haven't even brought it up yet on this call, it's
25:51.283 --> 25:55.353
more AI-focused, but when the tariffs came out in April it absolutely decimated
25:55.353 --> 25:59.291
stocks in the retail sector. I actually was at a presentation intended for
25:59.291 --> 26:02.160
hedge fund investors saying the entire sector is a short.
26:02.160 --> 26:04.563
They're all worthless with the tariffs.
26:04.563 --> 26:10.869
I was like I think this'll probably change. At some point people are going to
want to buy things. I
26:10.869 --> 26:14.906
ended up buying a Canadian retailer that was expanding in
26:14.906 --> 26:19.110
the U.S. that is seeing a lot of what we call brand heat with their brand
26:19.110 --> 26:23.081
really resonating with consumers, is launching a digital app and it's growing
26:23.081 --> 26:26.818
its store base and the timing was really great.
26:26.818 --> 26:29.220
It's been more than double for the fund.
26:29.220 --> 26:31.256
Fascinating.
26:31.256 --> 26:34.392
We've kind of hit the retailer and the consumer there.
26:34.392 --> 26:38.330
How do you take a look with a fast moving situation like this at the winners
26:38.330 --> 26:42.300
and losers? I mean, how does anything have an amazing moat around it when it's
26:42.300 --> 26:45.904
just getting off the ground, or maybe that's not where you go at all.
26:45.904 --> 26:49.874
I think we need to be conscious that major tech shifts like
26:49.874 --> 26:54.245
this, like the mobile era before, the web era before that,
26:54.245 --> 26:58.650
they can destroy moats. So the mote that you thought you had could
26:58.650 --> 27:03.555
disappear. These end up being bridges over that moat.
27:03.555 --> 27:07.626
It's really trying to assess what the mote is and does that
27:07.626 --> 27:11.563
change or does it survive. If it's workflow related
27:11.563 --> 27:16.101
things, does AI disrupt the workflow or is it additive to it?
27:16.101 --> 27:19.838
I think this is the debate the market's having on a lot of these stocks right
27:19.838 --> 27:21.272
now.
27:21.272 --> 27:24.342
It's really interesting. I put that to you as well.
27:24.342 --> 27:27.312
I mean, because you're the one pulling the trigger to either buy or sell,
27:27.312 --> 27:31.483
taking a look at that. I mean, there are new ideas forming in this market, how
27:31.483 --> 27:34.386
do you have confidence when you're going in there?
27:34.386 --> 27:38.623
While we're talking today about AI, Pamela, my fund
27:38.623 --> 27:43.795
is a diversified fund and I have a variety of idiosyncratic
27:43.795 --> 27:48.667
drivers of the different companies that I would own in that fund.
27:48.667 --> 27:51.703
Number one, they're all high quality companies.
27:51.703 --> 27:55.974
Other than AI, I've talked about retail, aerospace has been a really big
27:55.974 --> 28:00.178
theme, and we've talked about this for the past few years, I've owned it since
28:00.178 --> 28:02.080
2022.
28:02.080 --> 28:05.750
For me, I think if you're trying to find high quality companies own monopolies
28:05.750 --> 28:10.155
I think that for aerospace companies large parts that their businesses can be
28:10.155 --> 28:15.860
a monopoly because the part that they make have to be FAA approved,
28:15.860 --> 28:19.898
the services as well, only certain people can provide it so they tend to
28:19.898 --> 28:23.201
be very sticky and high margin There's a lot of secular growth there.
28:23.201 --> 28:27.772
Other than aerospace life sciences.
28:27.772 --> 28:31.810
Think of these as the companies that provide the picks and the shovels for
28:31.810 --> 28:36.014
biotech and pharma. I don't want to take large individual
28:36.014 --> 28:40.018
bets on certain drugs and then if the trial fails the stock goes down
28:40.018 --> 28:43.388
a ton. Instead I'd rather own these picks and shovels companies.
28:43.388 --> 28:45.056
The end markets are starting to improve.
28:45.056 --> 28:47.625
Pharma and biotech are starting to improve as an end market.
28:47.625 --> 28:50.795
You can see the biotech index ripping.
28:50.795 --> 28:53.998
Some of the other end markets like academic and government and China are
28:53.998 --> 28:59.504
starting to improve and these stocks are cheap so I have some exposure there.
28:59.504 --> 29:03.475
Streaming, both in terms of video and music, Netflix is in my
29:03.475 --> 29:07.212
top 10. I think that there's a lot of pricing power here.
29:07.212 --> 29:11.182
I think the whole industry has actually started to raise
29:11.182 --> 29:15.553
prices. The overspending on content has moderated
29:15.553 --> 29:17.322
and there's a lot of growth in pricing.
29:17.322 --> 29:21.359
There's a lot of growth on the ad side, and then on the music side
29:21.359 --> 29:25.196
there's lot of growth in users.
29:25.196 --> 29:29.334
Are we going to switch Ben, do you think, to be from our phones
29:29.334 --> 29:32.036
to be using the glasses? I mean, nobody really knows. This seems to be
29:32.036 --> 29:34.773
discussed but AI is changing a lot of different things.
29:34.773 --> 29:38.743
Are we going to consume what we think we consume now at
29:38.743 --> 29:43.414
a different level via something else, a different gadget?
29:43.414 --> 29:47.719
I think Annie and Mark talked about this of trying to see the future and
29:47.719 --> 29:53.158
trying to see where things go. That means looking at different paths.
29:53.158 --> 29:56.394
Uber wasn't a thing until we had the iPhone.
29:56.394 --> 29:58.930
You don't know what's going to come.
29:58.930 --> 30:00.732
We try and be on that leading edge.
30:00.732 --> 30:04.669
As much as Darren doesn't invest in private companies he'll join meetings
30:04.669 --> 30:08.940
with them and learn from them, see what's coming, see if there is something
30:08.940 --> 30:13.678
that could disrupt one of your higher quality companies.
30:13.678 --> 30:16.815
I think the form factors are changing.
30:16.815 --> 30:21.119
They were silly. You look at some of these big goggle-like things that
30:21.119 --> 30:23.988
seems like a real niche use case.
30:23.988 --> 30:27.458
I'm really glad to hear you say that.
30:27.458 --> 30:31.496
Might be really awesome for your living room but that's about it and probably a
30:31.496 --> 30:33.198
pretty small market.
30:33.198 --> 30:38.803
As we move into more socially acceptable wearables,
30:38.803 --> 30:43.007
the meta glasses, things like this, those start to move the dial
30:43.007 --> 30:46.778
of better fitting into everyday life.
30:46.778 --> 30:51.182
I think that's what we need to see, is technology that
30:51.182 --> 30:55.620
can change the world but fits into the world we want to live in.
30:55.620 --> 30:59.757
Fascinating. If you take a look what Mark's doing, the way you invest,
30:59.757 --> 31:02.360
we're plowing through markets that are getting a bit volatile.
31:02.360 --> 31:06.564
It's hard to know, as you say, you think we carry on with volatility
31:06.564 --> 31:09.067
and maybe we oversupply but not yet.
31:09.067 --> 31:13.004
What does not yet mean? Can you give us a little bit of a timeline,
31:13.004 --> 31:17.275
like not next month or not two years from now, something in between?
31:17.275 --> 31:21.045
I think it's longer. I don't want to tie myself to a year because inevitably
31:21.045 --> 31:23.281
I'm going to be wrong.
31:23.281 --> 31:27.118
We definitely learned last week that these companies are definitely moving
31:27.118 --> 31:30.088
forward on AI spending and then in terms of the--
31:30.088 --> 31:32.056
That money is going into the economy.
31:32.056 --> 31:34.759
--in terms of the data centre companies, I think there's going to a multi-year
31:34.759 --> 31:38.496
buildout. I was on the phone yesterday with the CFO of a company that does
31:38.496 --> 31:42.567
construction of data centres. Their rate limiting factor is they can't
31:42.567 --> 31:46.271
find enough people in the trades and they're going now to high school to
31:46.271 --> 31:50.341
recruit people. I think there's some time here but I also
31:50.341 --> 31:54.178
do think that there will be peaks and valleys and volatility on the way.
31:54.178 --> 31:57.215
I think that's also the opportunity for investors.
31:57.215 --> 32:01.786
How does your fund, I mean perhaps even with Mark's complementary,
32:01.786 --> 32:04.722
take investors through that because it's a bit of a journey there.
32:04.722 --> 32:07.125
Yeah, I think it is complementary to Mark's fund.
32:07.125 --> 32:11.062
I think he's more growth focused and he's probably going to leverage the
32:11.062 --> 32:15.767
AI theme more. I think that my fund would be more conservative and
32:15.767 --> 32:19.737
it's probably going to have more diversity of themes across the fund.
32:19.737 --> 32:23.741
I do think we're both looking for the best stocks that we think we
32:23.741 --> 32:27.178
are going to make money and drive returns for our unitholders.
32:27.178 --> 32:28.947
So you should own both, essentially.
32:28.947 --> 32:29.714
Yeah, I think so.
32:29.714 --> 32:30.882
Why not? Ok.
32:30.882 --> 32:35.620
Ben, take us through a little bit on just kind of the what's
32:35.620 --> 32:39.857
coming next piece of the story, of what you're looking at that
32:39.857 --> 32:42.794
could disrupt some of the companies that you take a look at, that you invest
32:42.794 --> 32:48.266
in. Software, how is it transforming?
32:48.266 --> 32:52.303
The market, again, has separated these into AI winners and AI
32:52.303 --> 32:56.240
losers. Basically, all of my days now are spent trying to
32:56.240 --> 33:00.378
sort the value traps from what could be generational buying
33:00.378 --> 33:04.749
opportunities because the sentiment is wrong on those.
33:04.749 --> 33:08.086
Now, some will be right. Some software companies will go away.
33:08.086 --> 33:12.223
Others, like Google did, will pivot from AI loser to AI winner.
33:12.223 --> 33:16.494
What's coming next? I think we're starting to see these move from
33:16.494 --> 33:20.732
the models and technologies into applications that these companies can
33:20.732 --> 33:25.370
sell. We're starting to see that revenue, or in this case ARR, ramp
33:25.370 --> 33:29.774
up and it's tracking that, monitoring that making sure we're
33:29.774 --> 33:34.112
turning these ideas and these promises into revenue and into earnings
33:34.112 --> 33:34.612
ultimately.
33:34.612 --> 33:36.414
Okay, and that's what you're investing in.
33:36.414 --> 33:41.119
Just a final thought to you, Darren, on what you want to say to investors here.
33:41.119 --> 33:45.189
Well, thank you for listening. For those
33:45.189 --> 33:49.327
that are invested in my funds I super appreciate it.
33:49.327 --> 33:53.064
I'm excited. I really like what I own in the fund today.
33:53.064 --> 33:55.133
Superstars, great to see you both here.
33:55.133 --> 33:57.969
Thank you very much, Ben and Darren, for joining us here today.
33:57.969 --> 34:01.906
Thanks for watching or listening to the Fidelity Connects
34:01.906 --> 34:06.044
podcast. Now if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to Fidelity
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Connects on your podcast platform of choice.
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And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a review or a five-star
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rating. Fidelity Mutual Funds and ETFs are available by working with
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a financial advisor or through an online brokerage account.
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Visit fidelity.ca/howtobuy for more information.
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While on Fidelity.ca, you can also find more information on future live
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webcasts. And don't forget to follow Fidelity Canada on YouTube, LinkedIn,
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and Instagram.
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We'll end today's show with a short disclaimer.
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The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the participants,
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and do not necessarily reflect those of Fidelity Investments Canada ULC or
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its affiliates. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not
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be construed as investment, tax, or legal advice.
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It is not an offer to sell or buy.
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Or an endorsement, recommendation, or sponsorship of any entity or securities
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cited. Read a fund's prospectus before investing, funds are not guaranteed.
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Their values change frequently, and past performance may not be repeated.
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Fees, expenses, and commissions are all associated with fund investments.
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Thanks again. We'll see you next time.

