She's On The Money - The 5 individual shares that returned the MOST in 2021

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Welcome back to our regularly scheduled Wednesday content, and what a welcome back it is - this week we're looking at the top-performing individual shares on the ASX in 2021, and why they made the cut. This isn't an advice episode (obviously! We never do that!) but rather an episode to more deeply discuss shares and what drives their performance! We hope you enjoy is as much as we enjoyed making it (which is a lot!)The advice shared on She’s on The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She’s on The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. Victoria Devine is an Authorised Representative of Infocus Securities Australia Proprietary Limited ABN 47 097 797 049 AFSL - AFSL 236523.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Just before we head into today's episode, we'd like to acknowledge and pay respect to Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. They're the traditional custodians of the lands, the waterways and the skies all across Australia. We thank you for sharing and for caring for the land on which we are able to learn. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and we share our friendship and our kindness. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. You all adored our episode earlier in the year detailing the top five ETFs of 2021.

so today we're going to steal that format and do the exact same thing but we've got a different co-host we've got georgia not the producer sam so look maybe it was such a great episode because i wasn't on it who knows we did get great feedback for sammy boy our producer that's not the case i'm back in the chair today we missed our g king asking the question thanks toots well so today as i said we're going to be stealing that format but we're looking at the top five performing shares on the ASX 200 from last year. So we're moving to shares. Individual shares. Correct. Yeah. Genius. Really original guys. Exactly. My name is Georgia King and joining me to reflect on exactly what happened last year and why is financial advisor, Victoria Devine. V, you're

basically bursting out of your boots over there, as they say. On a scale of one to 10, how excited are you for today's episode? Probably like an 8.3, Jay King, because I reckon it's not a 9 or a 10 on the NPS or the Net Promoter Score Scale, because I don't want people to think I'm too excited, but it's pretty up there. You're being modest. Well, I'm about a 2. Oh, wow, Jay. You're so invested in our community, their education, and just being along for the ride. My energy is a 10 and my inquisitive nature is a 10, but I am a little nervous because we are talking about the one topic that I know very little about because I'm an ignorant little mole which is shares and stocks. I know that was hard. Throw yourself further under the bus. It was too

much but I guess in terms of the structure of today's episode it makes sense to go from five to one and yeah obviously we're just ramping up the excitement and you guys are going to go wow can't believe it the countdown is on it's going to be like new years but better like you know how people like do the big countdown it's like it's like that but like terrible exactly right um so with that said fee let's get straight into it i reckon we get straight into it as well and i think it's absolutely no surprise to you guys that i have finally convinced the whole of the she's on the money team to let me do more investing content talk about shares because it makes sense for us to take that next step in our financial literacy and make that part of our daily

language and exactly what we're talking about. But the past year or the entirety of 2021 didn't turn out how we all thought it would. Gee, I believe we called 2020, what was it? The garbage fire. Called it the garbage fire. And we thought it was done. It was not done. We had to sit back down. Yeah, take a big slice of humble pie because we weren't done. And it definitely wasn't without its challenges. And overall, it did turn out to be a better year for investors than 2020 did. But the same way that 2020 was dominated by COVID impacting the share market, that happened again in 2021.

And I think there was a lot more conversation in 2021 about the rising prices of inflation. We were talking about that a lot in our community and, you know, the tightening of our, I guess, bootstraps, you could say, when it came to assets, because we were like, how long is this actually going to go for? I think a lot of people would have felt, okay, well, 2020 is over, 2021 is here now and I'm going to be okay. and it's kind of like, oh, actually, a lot of us are now realizing that work from home is actually going to be the reality and that the world is changing and has changed for not just the better,

but pretty significantly, and it's not going to be changing back. And I think a lot of us, myself included, just assumed that things might step back into what our old reality was. And that's just, gee, now not what's going to happen. A lot happened in the share market. And today, we're actually going to talk about only the top five performing shares from the Australian ASX top 200. And the reason I have chosen the ASX top 200, because obviously that top 200 doesn't encompass international shares, is to make things cleaner and clearer and give us the ability to talk about brand names that we've not just heard, but are on our own soil and on our own turf. Like it's so fun to talk about Tesla. It's so fun to talk about Apple, but those things to me feel

a little bit distant and therefore we're not as involved. So we could talk about how well Tesla did. Does that impact you or I directly because it's not actually our share market unless you actually invested in it directly? Not really. But what I want to talk about today are the top five performing shares here in Australia that are sitting on the ASX top 200. And G, I know you cannot wait to get into it. I am stoked. But before we do, we probably should talk about the ASX top 200 performance across the board, right? So, the ASX 200 encompasses 200 of Australia's biggest companies. So, the biggest companies in Australia all make this list and sometimes it changes out, some drop off, some come back on, but it's pretty consistent. And at the start of 2021

in January, the ASX started at $6,684.25. So, that's what it was worth in general, if you held all of them. And then there was obviously some volatility in the very first half of the year. It then in August, specifically on the 13th of August, it hit a high for 2021 and it came in to be valued at $7,628.92 G King on tour, which is pretty exciting because like that's obviously a fairly nice increase, but then it did decrease. So don't be too excited. That doesn't mean you should go out and invest in the ASX top 200 because on Friday the 17th of December the ASX closed at $7,303.97 which is obviously a fair bit higher than it was in January which is very exciting so overall it has increased but it wasn't the highest it had been that year

for a multitude of different reasons. Okay I was just thinking like this will be a really interesting episode, I think, for people who are like really across investing and shares and they'll be like, I recognize that terminology. I know what's happening. I understand why that share performed so well. And then there'll be people like my good self who will come to learn why certain shares do perform well and how they kind of function and the mechanics behind all of that. So really everybody wins. It's going to be a great episode. Exactly. Everybody wins. And I think the important thing here to note is that when I talk about the ASX top 200, I'm essentially grouping all of those shares together into one bucket, dividing their average returns. So it

means if you were an individual investor, like you would be had you bought these individual shares that we're talking about today, there is absolutely no guarantee that you would have a positive return, right? Like if you were just picking the top 10 or the top five shares that you wanted to invest in across 2021, that doesn't mean you would have seen a positive return because some shares on the ASX 200, they actually had negative returns. Some had really, really big returns and we're going to talk about them today, but it would be an interesting episode just to like talk more about the investing episodes I can do in the future. Bottom performing shares. Yeah. Who dropped the most G King?

Yeah. Why? How? When? Where? So, I just wanted to preface that. I mean, if you're not an individual share investor, which at the end of the day, I would not call myself an individual share investor. Most of my wealth, that sounds so wanky. It's not even that much money in the grand scheme of things. But most of my money that I have invested is actually split across two ETFs, which you would probably be surprised about because I don't ever want to invest in a direct share portfolio because I genuinely don't believe that I am nearly as smart as the fund managers that are picking stocks in ETFs. So I'm kind of like, all right, well, that works for me. But gee, probably side eyeing me at the moment because I do have a little

bit of fun on the side when it comes to investments. Like if I see a share that I'm really excited about or want to invest in, I definitely do do that. I actually have, and some of you might know this already, gee, I have an investing book coming out in September. Which is very exciting. but this strategy that I adopted is actually called a core satellite approach, where I have a core investment portfolio that I believe is like the core of my wealth creation. And for me, those are like the slow, steady steeds that are going to drive me forward consistently to create wealth. And then when we talk about satellite, it's literally like a satellite flying around the moon. And those are little investments that I make to keep myself as an investor and as a

financial advisor nourished and engaged, right? Because I don't want to go and bet all of my money on a share that I'm like, oh, this is probably going to do really well. And I want to have a bit of a play with this because I'm excited about it, but I'm not willing to bet my future wealth on that. So, I do invest in individual shares, but I also invest in a very well diversified portfolio of ETFs. So, I feel like people, that's a bit pervy, isn't it? That's very pervy and perhaps surprising to some listeners. Also very modest of you to say that you're not as smart as the managers of the funds, et cetera.

Oh, I mean, when it comes to picking shares, I'm obviously smarter than them in a lot of different ways and spaces. So don't get too ahead of me. The other thing we should say here, Vee, is that in reflecting on these top five shares from the ASX 200, we're not saying that you should run out and buy shares in these today. Oh my God, please don't. the volatility of the shares we are talking about today. Very volatile, George. So volatility in the share market means the ups and downs of the market. It is the ebbs and the flows and the

share market is far more volatile than like a cash investment. So say, gee, you've got some money sitting in a savings account, which I know you do, but what that is worth is not going to change whether it is today or it is next week because it's a savings account. You might get some sweet, sweet returns on your bank account, but I guarantee they're not that high because it's 2022 and they're through the floor. So, it's not going to change that much. But when it comes to the share market, and as you will see, volatility can be really high, but that doesn't mean it's more risky. But when it comes to individual shares, that does increase your risk significantly more than picking something like an ETF. We are absolutely not endorsing these.

We are not saying buy these. We are not even saying consider them. We are saying how interesting is it that these types of things happen? And this is essentially a piece of content for you guys to learn more about how the share market works. Absolutely not to be taken as advice. Good pick up there, G. Thank you so much. All right, V. With that said, let's rip into number five. That is the share that came in at number five on the ASX 200 last year. It is Unity Group Limited. yeah who are they all right g unity group limited their asx code is uwl for anybody who wants to look them up they're like a core technology infrastructure constructor owner and operator of predominantly fiber cable networks so jigging like the internet basically and associated

technology that aims to provide diversified telecommunication products and services so that sounds really sexy, but I guess to distill it down, they're essentially a telecommunications company that most of us haven't heard about. So, according to their Bloomberg profile, because I looked them up on there, they were established relatively recently, G. And when I say relatively recently, I mean 10 years ago. They were established in 2012. So, they've become a pretty big business pretty quickly. But they're pretty, from my perspective, pretty interesting. And I suppose, G, in 2022, it shouldn't come as a surprise to us that a telecommunications company thrived during the peak of COVID.

Okay. I mean, that kind of makes sense, right? Like there's been a lot of research about them. I've seen it a couple of times on stocks we should watch lists last year. They had some really good results that were published about six months ago. Like they put out their financial results, which I think was a very big main driver of their performance. and, you know, they had excellent results, which were really interesting because they made a lot

of acquisitions or they bought a lot of other companies over the last 24 months. So, that was a really interesting thing to happen. But the thing that I'm most interested in is not just like, what does this company do and why are they on this list? Obviously, they're on this list because they're one of Australia's top 200 companies, kind of cool. But gee, they're on this list because at the start of the trading year, which is the 4th of January, by the way, in 2021, their stock price was worth $1.71. Pretty good, but a little bit higher than a lot of companies in the ASX top 200. But their closing price at the end of 2021, which was the 17th of December 2021, G, their share price was $4.64, which means their percentage change was 171.3%.

Nice. Like what? Okay. How good is that? That means if you, and I've done the math here, if you invested $1,000 in those shares at the start of 2021, you'd have $2,713 in your account now. Very nice. Not bad. Pretty good size, I reckon. Cheers, Unity Group Limited. Okay. So, you're saying that is largely because of the impacts of the penny D, the pandemic, I should say. The penny D, you're making it sound a lot more colloquial than it actually is. I know, why exactly is that just because we were all spending more time online? Look, it's not just because we were spending more time online. It was absolutely interesting to see that that happened, but they actually made a lot of acquisitions. So, they bought a lot of

smaller companies during 2021. And that means that they obviously grew and with really good financial reports, which as I said, about six months ago, even further back, they were reporting really good financials. And when a company goes through an acquisition period, so an acquisition period is a period of time when companies like, do you know what? We want to grow, but organic growth isn't fast enough for us, G. Like, you know, growing and posting on Instagram and stuff isn't going to cut the mustard. We want to go and take over other businesses, take their clients and fold them into ours. And that can turbocharge the growth of a company. But that can do one of two things, from my honest and humble opinion, that can do what it did for Unity Group, which

was turbocharge their financials and it all worked out probably exactly how they wanted it to, if not exceeded their expectations. But sometimes, George, that acquisition and therefore the merger, so the merger is where the two companies come together, can sometimes be quite tumultuous. So investors are often a little bit apprehensive of getting involved in a company that's going through an M&A or a merger and acquisition period, because they're like, either this could go really, really well, or it could go really, really badly. Like, can you imagine two companies coming together, having two CEOs, two CFOs, two marketing departments, two HR departments, and having a business come together and go, hey, gee, we both are in HR, but we now only need one

HR department. Like as a business and as the way that business functions, sometimes it can kind of crumble from within because the business isn't functioning as it should. But then on the outward side of things, sometimes a business is acquired and they don't realize how much they need to change the processes or update the way things are working or the cost involved to change old processes into the new processes that the company wants them to work on. So, sometimes when that happens, like share prices go down because it didn't go so well. But in this situation, their acquisitions really shone through their financial reports. And I think that a lot of investors saw that and were really happy with that. But also, I saw a couple of times, and this

would have been in early 2021. I feel like I'm getting too into this, so we'll move on in just a hot second. But I did see them at the start of 2021 named as a stock that was currently being undervalued. And when you ask somebody who researches stocks and looks into them consistently and is on a lot of email lists of different investment companies like I am, that kind of shone through as I like, oh, why are they undervalued? Is that something I should be looking at to include in portfolios? And I have no doubt that a lot of people were looking at that going, yeah, actually they are undervalued. Let's get on that ship. And the thing that does really drive stock price is obviously performance and key metrics, but also supply and demand.

And so therefore demand could have increased because a lot of people are saying a lot of good things about them. They're doing a lot of great things. Their financials are starting to look really sexy, G. And therefore demand has really pushed up their share price. It's super exciting, but also probably worth mentioning that their stock price has dropped by about 10% in the last few months. So we'll just sweep that off because we're not talking about 2021 performance. We'll talk about that next year. And as you said, J. King, these are not recommendations, but that is a reflection of the volatility of the market. So had you sold your shares on the 17th of December,

you would have been up, but you wouldn't be up as much if you were still holding them today. Man, how do you know though? How do you know when to sell? You don't. You don't. There's no such time as when to sell. There's a time when you go, should I take some money off the table because it's too risky to leave it on the table in that share and I would like to take it off and put it in a more solid and consistent asset. But then there's also good financial planning and you go, all right, well, at this age, I want to start selling down my portfolio or I want to start taking my portfolio and transforming it into more stable assets. So the closer you get to retirement, I could go on and on and on about

this G, but the closer you get to retirement, the more stable your assets are likely to be because you just don't have the time that a lot of us have for the volatility of the market to go up and down. And they say, and when I say they, I mean the good investment companies of the world, say that over your lifetime, you will go through seven different market crashes. So as you know, right now the market has crashed. So a tick and one off. Yep. It went down 3% a couple of weeks ago because of, you know, the stuff going on in Ukraine and it has gone down even further since then. And it's super interesting. But we've been through the GFC. We've seen that. We've seen the COVID crash. We've seen that. Now we're seeing

the Ukraine and Russia war crash. And it's not necessarily going to be a crash because I don't think it's going to impact the share market nearly as significantly as something like COVID. But we will see. We don't know what the future looks like. But the one thing that we do know is that cycles are consistent and there will be highs and there will be lows and we need to take money off the table when we don't have any more time to see another low. Okay. So, no way of predicting it. No way of predicting it. I'm sorry. I've said before, guys, I'd be so rich if I could predict the market. And guys, I'm trying. I'm real trying. Yeah. Thanks, girl. All right. Well, let's move on to number four, if you're ready. You're happy with that? Yeah. Okay. So, number

four is Pilbara Minerals Limited. Yep. So, they are an Australian mining company. They call themselves Emerging. That sounds a little bit sexier than just we're a mining company. Sure. I don't know. Emerging Mining Company sounds a little bit more ethical, but it doesn't change anything. But essentially, they mine lithium and tantalite. I have no idea what tantalite is. And when I say I have no idea, I mean, I had no idea until I googled it. okay and g tantalite and i didn't know a lot about what tantalite was before i googled it except for it is something that is mined pretty regularly in australia but essentially it's used in alloys for strength and it actually has higher melting points than like glass so it's used in

glass to increase the index of refraction and it's also used to give more strength to things like surgical steel so it's essentially like an important or of the industrial useful metal category, if that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. I hope that makes sense. But if we want to go a little bit hippie, if you had some tantalite, that's actually a stone that would help ease away thoughts that contain poor or wrongful judgment, as well as thoughts that contain different types of negativity. So like, maybe it's a good stone to have. I mean, it could be, I wouldn't really be heading down that, that line of things, but Hey, maybe that's why they went up so much because people were really holding onto their crystals last year. Do I sound judgmental? Yeah, because

you know I love crystals. That's so rude. As someone who consistently, is this too much information for an investing podcast? I consistently carry a rose quartz with me and it's usually, guys, watch out for it. It's usually in my bra. Actually, no, I think I did know this about you. I've forgotten, but now I've remembered. it's a weird fact about victoria divine but um she carries a rose quartz because it's not i don't know it's not because i'm like oh it's a healing stone and whatever like i know it's the universal stone of love but as someone who has gone through significant periods of doubt when it comes to self-love it was a very big part of my therapy a long time ago and like by putting that in my

bra consciously consistently and having it close to my heart it like kind of reminds me that self-love and love in general is like the most important thing and it's really important to me so it kind of reminds me of that consistently like you know how some people wear rings or really beautiful bracelets or like have physical reminders of things you might get a tattoo like to me that's something that I keep close to me because it's a physical reminder that self-love is incredibly important and you can't pour from an empty cup really soft really mushy would you like to talk a little bit more about Pilbara though let's talk more about pilbara yes um so why did they perform so well if it doesn't have anything

to do with crystals so gee you're right it didn't have anything to do with crystals which is nice to know but really disappointing but imagine if crystals were the reason that like they surged like we all just wanted some rose quartz to put in our bras yeah i don't know big but yeah but pilbara minerals as you said they did pretty well they are number four on our list they surged by 216.1% in 2021G. So, their opening share price on the 4th of January was $0.87 and it increased to $2.75, meaning if you'd invested a grand, you would now have $3,161 in your account. That's pretty exciting. That's pretty good. That's good. Well, it's the fourth best. But if we want to talk about why and when and where and how, there was actually a pretty

big scramble when it came to buying Pilbara shares last year. And the reason for that was there was just this ever increasingly bullish outlook on lithium. So when I say ever increasing bullish, like that's such investor speak. But what I'm saying is there was an ever increasing, very positive outlook for lithium. like people were saying that lithium shares were going to go nuts and this then obviously led to many different types of lithium shares generating outsized returns for investors over the last 12 months so demand for lithium as well has also been increasing for a number of reasons one it's mined in australia which is really nice but one of the biggest reasons lithium is really

important is because of the rise of popularity of electric vehicles g and this whole theme around decarbonisation. So, the demand is actually so strong that has been tipped to material outstripped supply over the next couple of years. So, these share prices are increasing, but we are potentially, as a country, going to run out of the supply of lithium. So, like, how's that going to impact share prices, G? How is it going to impact them? Well, for a number of reasons, and to be honest, we can't predict it, but it's just really interesting. Lithium as well. You might have heard of lithium batteries before. Not a new concept, but lithium batteries are obviously increasing in popularity. One, because people are preparing for things like COVID and shortages of things,

but Pilbara Minerals actually has a battery material exchange auction. And that's where they started auctioning off different metric tons of this product to different buyers. And I guess this shocked the market because it was obviously notably higher in price than it had actually been at the time and since then the company has increased the price again and again which is kind of interesting but unlike number five which we were talking about before G and how they crashed we shouldn't be talking about 2022 because I'm meant to be reporting on 2021 but I found this really interesting on the first day of market trade in 2022 Pilbara Minerals share price actually meteorically rose and jumped another 10% to be a share price of $3.52. Really? Like what?

It's increasing significantly. And so I guess it's not about whether you should invest. It's just an interesting, I guess, thought pattern around what's going on, because I would hold a little bit of apprehension when it comes to investing in something like lithium, when the market has said we're going to run out of that as well. Like how long is that going to go for? But then I'm also, I'm a little bit hippie. I just told you I had crystals in my bra. I don't actually want to invest in a mining company. And in my portfolio, I don't have any mining companies because it's not aligned to my values. So, regardless of what their performance are, I'm still not that attracted to the company. Does that make sense? Like performance ain't

everything. Like it doesn't matter how big your returns are, G. It's not what counts. Before we head to a break, V, I'm going to make myself really vulnerable and ask you a dumb question. No such thing, JK. This one could be. Mining. Yes. We know coal mining, hugely problematic, very bad for the environment. Are there forms of mining that aren't problematic or is it pretty much all just let's steer clear from an ethical perspective, not for me? Like what's your take on that? I just feel like there's this gold rush for people who are doing quote green lithium right at the end of the day mining in australia you know i'm gonna get thrown under the bus for this but it's still a dirty business from my perspective like mining for

lithium like every other metal is a dirty business because of the way it has been established and it's very hard to change an entire mining company like you would probably be aware that entire communities around Australia are set up to support the mining industry and vice versa. So changing that is incredibly detrimental. Like as much as I go, do you know what? I'm not going to put my money there. I don't support it. It doesn't mean I don't support the mining communities and what it does for the Australian economy. Like it's a very hard conversation to be had, but no, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing it ethically, but it is interesting to see companies like Pilbara who are coming out and saying okay cool like lithium goes into things like batteries for

electric cars and wind turbines and you know electric smart grids and all of those things help lower global CO2 emissions which is good so they're really trying to work for the better but it doesn't necessarily mean that mining is quote good but I think when they're starting to shift the narrative of what they're putting their product into and the purpose of their business and their drives and their ethics. I think that things are changing, but it's going to be a long slog because you can't just pick up a mine and change it into being a green ethical business. And at the end of the day, we still have cars on the road. We still need, you know, sources of energy that aren't renewable. But I think that we're making good steps in the right direction.

And from my perspective, boycotting companies that are mining is not going to help us because they're the companies that are starting to set new standards for what is acceptable in this space and are really listening to consumers and changing that. And I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of BHP, but they're doing a lot in that space to work out how they can be sustainable and how they can impact the world in a very good way. It doesn't mean what they do at a base level is something I totally agree with, but I think what I really appreciate is, okay, we hear this is it. It doesn't mean we shouldn't support the companies if they're growing and changing and, you know, really trying to impact the world in a good way while not trying to just like

cut, you know, this resource from underneath other people's feet. Interesting. Food for thought. Let's go to a break, Gigi. Yeah, let's take a little break for sure. All right, BD, we are back to reveal number three on our list. It is, of course, Imogen Limited. Imogen, is that how we're saying it? perhaps it is spelled I-M-U-G-E-N-E. I'm going to go out on a whim here and say perhaps it has something to do with genetics. They've had fun with some genes and they've nailed it and they've gone up. Yeah, I like that. Have you got any other guesses? Maybe something about imaging or

imagining perhaps it's a creative service provider. No, you are right. I'm right. I mean, not genetics um but immunotherapy okay so like along the right i guess you're along the right way the immunogen how did you say it before like immunogen something immunogen i think they might call themselves immunogen like immunogen just because yeah like like immunogen only because they do immunotherapy like i think that that's where they've probably got their name okay but like immunogen is i don't know like this isn't the purpose of the podcast but now i'm really interested to know why they call themselves that. But they're a clinical stage immuno-oncology company that is developing a range of new treatments that seek to activate the immune

system for cancer patients. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So, probably not something for me to be making jokes about. No, look, no jokes. That's okay. But this sounds very interesting and very helpful. It is very interesting and very helpful. So, G, the reason they are performing so well in the market is because of one, they're doing some really cool work that looks like it's going to be very successful, which is very, very exciting for that space. But also in 2021, they did a whole heap of immuno-oncology research activities that were undertaken in the financial year ending June 30, 2021. So it happened in 2022, but they reported on that research at the end of June 2021. And that research actually landed them a grant to get a pretty big tax refund. And they got a $6.5

million cash boost, which aimed to support commercial and clinical milestones. So that means that they are taking things that next step further, and they're going to start actually doing even more testing, which is like ticking off the next boxes, making sure that their milestones are reached, and several of which have actually been ticked off this year. As I said, I probably shouldn't be talking about 2022, but they have ticked off a number of different milestones this year, and they are really gaining momentum. In fact, what was it? About two weeks ago, they actually announced that they had secured a patent for its HERVAX immunotherapy candidate in South Korea, which is very, very exciting because HERVAX was a gastric cancer research initiative

that they started in 2016. And it's now, I guess, it's getting the funding and the patents that they need to be successful, which is very, very exciting for the future of science and medicine. And it just looks like they are good eggs doing really good things, J. King. Amazing. In terms of the specifics, so where did they start on January 4th, 2021? And where did they end up at the end of December? Oh, you know the dates now, you little share master. I love it. On the 4th of January, their share price was sitting at 10 shaking. Cheap as chips. Cheap as chips, but the closing share price on the 17th of December doesn't sound impressive, but I promise you it is. Their closing price was $0.46. So their

percentage change was 355%. And to put that in context, in the way that I have done for all the other shares, if you had invested $1,000 on the 4th of January and you were looking at your share portfolio on the 17th of December, you would have $4,550. So, not bad. That's a pretty good size. So, riddle me this though, Bea, because I'm looking at the chart in front of me and you've got Unity Group Limited, my mates. So, if you bought one of their shares, it would have cost you $1.71 at the start of the year and by the end of the year, $4.64. Yet, the percentage of the increase in growth is lesser than Imogen but they've only gone up by 36 cents what does that mean like what am I missing there what am I not getting like if we go to the bottom it says

171 and then it says four so like that's like three dollars and then if you get so it's not it's actually the percentage change what does that mean so the percentage change is the like 100% of $1 would be $1, right? So, if something went from $1 to $2, you would say that has increased 100%, right? So, when you say Imugen, for them to go from 10 cents to 46 cents, that is a very significant jump. And when you look at the percentage change of what they are worth, like $1.71 to $4.64 that's a difference of 171 percent ish but then the difference of 10 cents to 46 cents that's actually a jump of 355 because if we distill it down right if you take that 10 cents and times it by four that would become 40 cents yeah yeah yeah which is why the percentage

says it's 355 percent because it's actually pretty much quadrupled this makes sense does that make more sense? It makes a lot of sense. Not a silly question at all, because you look at the percentages and you're like, what does that even mean? Like what's 355% and why is that so much more when they say 10 cents and the other is like $1.71? It's actually the percentage and the difference in comparison to where they started. Whereas G, if we took the opening share price for Unity Group, which was $1.71 and just times that by four, which would be 400% increase, you would actually have a share price of about $6.84 in comparison to the $4.64 they had, which was 171% of an increase. Does that make sense? It does make sense. Yeah. You just kind

of need to stop and think about it because at a glance, it doesn't make sense if you don't have a math sprain like I don't. Yeah. Look, the numbers are pretty scary, which is why I actually wanted to contextualize it with that. If you invested $1,000, this is what it would mean because a lot of us don't have the ability genuinely, not because we're not intelligent, but because our brains work in a linear way, we don't have the ability to comprehend what that means. We go, what the hell? How does that work? Because our brains actually literally are wired to work in a linear way. We don't actually have the ability, literally scientifically, G, to contextualize percentages as well as we do what that would mean to us literally.

Okay. Kind of cool. Very cool. Was there anything else you wanted to cover re-imaging or should we move on to number two? We should move on. We've got more percentages to talk about and digest. I reckon we move on. All right.

Drum roll. Number two is Liontown Resources Limited. Maybe it could be something to do with the zoos, zoo doctors. Not sure. Talk us through it. Okay. Sure. We're going to move from Pilbara, which was a lithium mining company, to Liontown, which is

also a lithium mining company. Very exciting. I know. Very, very exciting. But they have had an incredible 2021. And I feel like Liontown is a very exciting place to be. They have actually surged once again this year. As I said, probably shouldn't be talking about 2022, but we all keep up with it because Liontown in the last couple of weeks has actually signed a lithium supply agreement G with Tesla oh there you go I know and that we're saying oh my god like because we know how big Tesla is and you now know that lithium is what creates the batteries that run cars like Tesla and I find that so interesting that you immediately went oh because you knew the brand name and that's what's going to happen the more we talk about share prices and the more we talk

about shares in general you're going to be like oh Liontown aren't they the ones that signed that contract like that makes sense that they would be thriving so it's kind of interesting right so let's get into the numbers because these guys started at a not so sexy beginning and when i say not so sexy i mean it wasn't like unity group who had a dollar and 71 which was pretty high liontown resources opened on the 4th of january jking with an initial opening price of 34 cents per share. So, nothing to write home about, I wouldn't believe. But by the time the 17th of December came, they had a share price of $1.56, which you'll go, V, Pilbara, they closed at $2.75. So, is that not better? No, because their percentage change was 357.4%, which means

if you had invested a grant, you'd have $4,574 in your account on the 17th of December had you invested for that entire period. Huge. Kind of cool, right? Okay, so how come then, like why is Lyontown, why did they move so far ahead of Pilbara if they're both in the lithium game? What was the difference there? So, lithium in Australia is nothing new. It is not something that we go, wow, we're finally doing this. We've done it for a long time. And so, when companies that are plodding along and doing well start to do things like raising capital from institutional investors and shareholders, you start to go, what are they doing? What are they planning? Why are they doing

this? And that's when I guess the eye gets cast to them and you go, how are you doing? What do your financials look like? You're being pretty aggressive in the market. And the business last year did a capital raise for institutional investors and shareholders and actually raised $490 million at a share price of $1.65, which was essentially a 14.1% discount to the last closing price, which is very, very cool. This raising happened after they did what they called a DFS, which is a definitive feasibility study for a project that they're planning to do in Western Australia. That project is called the Kathleen Valley Lithium Project. And the plan was they did this study to work out if it would be worth doing this new project and seeing if they

could make even more money by mining even more lithium. And that obviously came out as a positive. And they essentially said that they could ramp up how much lithium they were delivering per year by year six. And essentially, investors were like, great, that sounds fantastic. We'd like to get behind it. So they did do a lot. They obviously went to institutional investors. When we say institutional investors, we mean really big investors like banks. We're not talking really rich billionaires. An institutional investor is when a bank gets behind it and they go, yeah, all right, your business plan is pretty good. We'll give you some cashola to throw in there and make sure that happens. But then they also obviously went to market and individual

investors were buying shares, becoming regular investors. And essentially that means that that company, because of that capital raising or essentially just like fundraising that they've done for their business, they now have cash reserves of around $474 million, which is pretty exciting because they're planning on funding their new projects with that. And they've, you know, got a pretty good looking balance sheet at the moment. So I can see why people are looking at it going, all right, that makes a lot of sense because in addition to being successful with the project, that lithium company is actually going to increase jobs and services in WA for the mining industry as well, which is obviously all very healthy when it comes to, I guess, regular

business operations. And do we assume, or perhaps you have the numbers in front of you, that they're still killing it with the partnership with Tesla? Yes, they are still killing it. The partnership that we're talking about with Tesla was actually only announced a couple of weeks ago, Jay. It wasn't something that was announced last year. I just think it's really exciting and I knew you'd know what I was talking about. Elon Musk. Well, with that, Faye, should we move on to the star performer of 2021? Drum roll here. Is that? No, that would have been a terrible drum roll, but you guys are stuck with it because it's on the audio file. So it is Nova Nix Limited. Who on earth are these high-flying people?

You're going to be surprised when I tell you our star performer for 2021 was actually a battery materials and technology company. Bloody batteries. I know, they're doing so well on our share market this year. Here I am thinking when I started to do the research, because I didn't know off the top of my head of the top five performing shares, because I was like, I don't know who these guys are because I don't invest in who's performing well over a particular period of time. But it turns out mining in Australia, going off guys, this company, surprisingly or unsurprisingly, specializes in lithium ion batteries used to power electric vehicles, mobile phones and energy storage units, which is kind of exciting.

But they are extra fancy G King because NovoNyx's clients include the likes of Panasonic and Bosch and with the high value battery market now being estimated to be worth about 60 billion US dollars per year, each and every single year. Like I can see why so many lithium ion companies have actually made it to the top five performing list of she's on the money share prices. I know nothing about this. So it is kind of a shock to me, but anything would be, I guess. What did Novonix do differently? Or have they just been around longer? What's the go? So they are a US-based company and they joined the ASX in July 2017 after the business was acquired by Graphite Corp, which is another mining business in June. So they are pretty big and given

they are an American business, they can be a little bit more, I could say, aggressive because they are in general just bigger, right? And then in 2018, Novonix began making battery cells in Canada. They actually produced the first batch of syndrical cell and pouch cells as its battery cell pilot factory in Nova Scotia? Nova Scotia, baby. Nova Scotia. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. How do you know that? I don't know. It would be a TV reference from many years ago. Okay, awesome. So, they made them there. They are a really big business. Since then, they've raised a lot of money to invest in that pure graphite joint venture, and that has actually seen them become one of the biggest battery technology solutions companies in the world. So, obviously,

with a pretty sexy list of clients and the fact that there is such a hunger for lithium-ion batteries in the world, it kind of makes sense. And they've, this year, G-King, come out on top. All right, V, let's talk numbers then with Novonix. What are we talking? All right. So, these ones, very impressive. So, they had an opening share price on the 4th of January of a mere $1.22 per share, which is not that sexy. I mean, Unity Group was higher than that. And there were a couple of shares that didn't perform nearly as well that had much higher share prices, right? But gee, on the 17th of December, 2021, their closing share price was $8.94, which is a percentage change of 632.8%. Meaning, to contextualize this, if you invested

a grand, you'd have $7,328 sitting in your account on the 17th of December. Like what? Yes, thanks. Yes. Like, I want my investments always to increase by 632%. Like, what? So, that's pretty much double lion town in terms of the percentage increase. Or is my maths wrong here again? Is that looking right? No, no. You're definitely on par. That's how that works. And it's super interesting, right, to see how – I feel like percentage changes are really hard for us to comprehend because historically we've been taught there's no such thing as more than 100%. Like, there is on the stock market when it comes to percentage

changes. And that's just to give you a little bit of context, right? Like, 632% is not, quote, a percent. It's more a context marker that helps you see how much has increased by. But to go from $1.22 as an opening share price at the start of that year to $8.94, which is basically $9, is crazy. Like that's so much money, G. So hang on just a minute, Miss Victoria Devine. So this is the ASX 200 from 2021 that all Australian companies, you just said that Novonix is American. What's happening here? They're taking our number one. What's that? I know it's kind of rude, isn't it? A little bit. How are they on this list? So, the ASX can actually have a number of different companies on it. So, American companies

can actually be listed on the ASX. And actually, in recent years, the ASX has stepped up, according to them, its efforts to attract foreign companies to the Bourse. And this is just one of those companies that have decided to list down under, which is kind of cool. So, it means that we have direct access to them. And yeah, summary of that, foreign companies can list themselves on the ASX and gee, at current, there are actually more than 270 international companies listed on the ASX. How big is the ASX fee or the Australian Stock Exchange, if we haven't said that and made it clear yet? So, it's definitely not as big as some of the market exchanges around the world, but there are actually more than 2,000 companies currently listed on the ASX and lots are being

listed regularly. So there are smaller companies and they are generally considered to be a little more risky when it comes to being an investment as they are more likely to go out of business than the larger ones. And the larger ones actually want to be on more global stock exchanges, which kind of makes sense. And when you say the larger companies, you don't mean the number of employees that work there, you mean the revenue that they build? Yes, but often with that comes headcount, right? Like the more you are turning over, the more responsibility you have as a business, the more staff you are going to require to manage that because you can't just go from earning a hundred dollars a week to earning a hundred million dollars a week and not have the

right infrastructure around you. And infrastructure is often made up of staffing. So, yes, you're right. Could be based on turnover, but it also could just be based on the size of the organization. Literally. Okay. There you go. Actually, when it comes to the ASX, I had an interesting one the other day and this is completely left field. So to wrap up all of that, I think it's just interesting to have a conversation about, well, who were the top five companies when it comes to direct performance? And super interesting to see that it's lithium. But G, you just had a question about the ASX and I actually had a message from someone the other day. They're like, I just tried to Google my share price and

for some reason it's not coming up. It's coming up as yesterday's date. And that's because here in Australia, our ASX or our stock exchange is actually only open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday to Friday. Did you know that, G? I didn't know it was 10 till 4. I knew it was Monday to Friday, but is that not a thing universally? Yeah, really nice relaxed hours. It depends. Our hours are 10 till 4 p.m. and hundreds of stock exchanges around the world operate in that way, but the timings are often very different. But we've got some nice relaxed hours when it comes to the share market and that has always worked out really well for me as a financial advisor because I don't need to be up at like 5am to check the markets. I can cruise into work, get a coffee and then be there when the

market's open and I'm pre-caffeinated. How good is that, Jay? It's so weird because again, people probably do, but I don't think of it as like an actual market where things are happening every day and people are making these deals. Like, you know, you just kind of think that it happens and you like buy and sell i don't know is that oh you're looking at me it's a no no no no i'm not it's literally a market like yeah it's a market where you buy and sell and i'm you know i guess to trivialize my job for a second i don't just rock into work with a coffee and then check the markets at 10 a.m a lot of what you know investment bankers and investors in general will be doing before 10 a.m is checking their emails and checking trades they want to make and submitting

those trades so when the market opens they go through immediately like there's a lot to it and it is quite interesting when it comes down to it because you as a general investor g you go well it's not really a market but it literally is all day every day from 10 till 4 p.m people are making trades on the share market and prices are going up and down based on demand and based on what's going on in the economy like a couple of weeks ago we saw a crash in the asx and it went down across the board by more than 3%. That's really scary, but that's based on demand. That's based on people going, oh my gosh, this has just been announced. When I talk about this, I'm talking about the war between Ukraine and Russia. This has just been announced and I don't want to hold

this particular asset anymore. People are disposing of assets and the disposal of assets or people selling their assets is what starts to drive share prices down because people aren't being as aggressive in purchasing. It's a very interesting world to start learning more about, G. Which is exactly why we did today's episode. Was there anything else you want to add before we head for the day? This has been a very long episode, but I've loved every minute. It has been. I love you if you stuck around for this. I hope it wasn't too dry or bland or boring. Please, please, please slip into our DMs with feedback on episodes like this because as much as they are dry. I feel like you guys learn a lot about the share market when I get to talk

about individual shares, a lot about the ASX, about how that works, about how share trading works. And an episode on the nitty gritty of, gee, how can we trade on the ASX is just not nearly as impactful as starting to deep dive into shares and then you asking context questions around that. It's kind of like getting to learn while on the job in a way. And I feel like that most of the time is actually far more constructive for you than it is if I go, okay, Georgia King, so the ASX, let's talk about it. It doesn't make it as tangible or as real. Whereas I think when we're talking about a particular share and how that works and what that means and how did they get on the ASX is actually a really interesting conversation to be had. For sure. And I think,

as you said, during this show, we should definitely take a look at the stocks that tanked and do like the reverse of this episode because I think that sounds juicy. totally that'll be a really juicy episode but that is as always all we have time for today and remember guys that the advice shared on she's on the money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances she's on the money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or a financial decision and we promise victoria divine is an authorized representative of in focus securities australia are you getting used to that or you still want to stay australia pacific uh because that's like so 2021 g living in the past

man australia proprietary limited avn 470-977-97049 afsl 236-523 we will see you next week guys see you next week guys Thanks for watching!