Here’s what you need to know today

• A global IT outage crippled businesses and grounded airlines. The cause was a software update by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike for computers running Microsoft Windows. Microsoft estimate that 8.5 million computers globally were affected (1% of computers running Windows). Measured by economic impact it was one of the worst tech incidents in history. 
  
  

• Remember the concern around Australia’s mortgage cliff as 880,000 households were rolling off low fixed rates into much higher variable rate home loans? Turns out we’ve got through the worst of it and the Aussie homeowner has held up much better than expected. 
  
  

• The next Australian federal election is creeping up on us (must be held on or before 27 September 2025) and for the first time this term the Coalition now leads Labor in polls. The Liberals & Nationals lead Labor 51-49 on a two-party preferred basis.
  
  

• Meta is looking to buy 5% of eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. EssilorLuxottica is an eyewear giant, with some estimates of up to 80% market share, and the company behind Meta’s augmented reality glasses. A deal would suggest Meta is still committed to building the metaverse (despite not talking about it publicly)
  
  

• The will-they, won’t-they of American politics continues. As President Joe Biden vows to return to the campaign trail this week after isolating with COVID, multiple members of Congress have endorsed Kamala Harris as their preferred candidate and reports have emerged that Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have both privately expressed their concerns directly to President Biden. 
  
  

• Cryptocurrencies have had a great week. After falling below $57,000 USD earlier this month, Bitcoin is now back above $66,000 USD. While expectations of interest rate cuts has been a factor, the biggest driver has been Trump’s selection of JD Vance as his Vice Presidential candidate. Vance has been a major supporter of crypto and in his last financial filing owned a lot of Bitcoin himself. 

What the…?

From Russian attempts to impact elections to Chinese censorship of its social media, authoritarian regimes go to great lengths to control information online. Well, Russia is taking it a step further, rewriting Wikipedia with a more Kremlin-friendly ideology. 

LGBT rights, Soviet history, the war in Ukraine, Putin himself are all getting a rewrite as part of Russia’s effort to rewrite the internet’s encyclopedia.

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today.

Why aren’t there more Warren Buffetts?

We love this question and found this article had us thinking. The premise of the question is simple - unlike so many other successful fund managers, Warren Buffett has been very public about his investing process. He’s written long letters outlining what he’s looking for, discussed the stocks he plans to own for decades to come and every year he’s spent a day on stage taking questions from regular investors. Buffett’s ‘secret sauce’ hasn’t been a secret for half a century. So why aren’t there more investors like him?

According to this article, there are three main reasons. They all centre around investing psychology and the incentives set up in the modern finance industry. Buffett’s style of investing can often suffer long periods of underperformance and many professional investors prefer investing styles that deliver results closer to the overall market. Because of the structure of Berkshire, Buffett also doesn’t face the risk that investors pull their money if he has a down year or two, unlike many other professional fund managers.

That reasoning all makes sense, but as we thought about it more, we think there is another answer. There are more Warren Buffett’s. Plenty of investors have copied Buffett’s style. His outsized returns are down to his consistency and incredibly long time horizon. Remember, 99% of Buffett’s wealth came after his 50th birthday. 70% of his wealth came after his 70th birthday.

Plenty of investors would retire wealthy and happy before they reach those milestones. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t another one. The next Warren Buffett is probably out there, quietly compounding capital and we’ll only realise in hindsight when we look back at a 40, 50 or 60 year track record that was worth paying attention to.

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Join Sammy Gordon, regular Equity Mates property expert, in the studio with his co-host Jimmy Ibrahim as they dive into the most common mistakes they see beginner investors make in their journeys that hold them back from true success in their journeys.

After both building sizeable portfolio’s, they break down personal mistakes in their own journeys and what they see daily, working with so many investors in building their portfolios. 

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