She's On The Money - The Investing Trends That Defined 2025 (And What They Mean For You)

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

If you’ve been trying to make sense of what’s actually going on in the share market right now… this is your cheat sheet. In this week’s Deep Dive, we’re getting into the investing trends that defined 2025. Where the money actually went, what investors were prioritising, and what it all says about how people were really feeling about their finances last year. We’re talking: The ETF boom (and why everyone and their group chat is suddenly investing in them) The shift from “growth at all costs” to diversification, income and a little bit of caution What’s actually going on when people start moving into bonds, debt funds and so-called “defensive” assets The industries that quietly (and not so quietly) delivered huge returns… hello mining and precious metals And the standout stocks that had everyone talking, including one Aussie company that shot up over 300% We also break it all down in plain English. No jargon, no gatekeeping, just a clear look at what’s changed and why it matters for you. Because while it’s fun to look at the 300% and 500% returns (we love a bit of investing gossip), the real story of 2025 isn’t about picking the next winner. It’s about building something that can actually survive whatever comes next. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re “doing investing right”… or just want to understand what everyone else seems to be talking about, this one’s for you.CHECK OUT THE SOTM INVESTING HUB: Full of our best investing freebies, resources, courses and podcast episodes here. INVESTING FOR BEGINNERS: All our best beginner's investing podcast episodes in one place here.SHARESIES CODE: Sign up for the investing platform Sharesies, use the code SOTM10 and deposit any amount and Sharesies will give you a bonus $10 to invest. Join our She's on the Money community AKA the ultimate support network for money advice and inspiration. Ask questions, share tips, and celebrate your wins with a like-minded crew of 300,000+.And follow us on Instagram for Q&As, bite-sized tips, daily money inspo and relatable money memes that just get you.Acknowledgement of Country By Nartarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements.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. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs. Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708, AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is Natasha Bamblett, I'm a proud First Nations woman, and I'm here to acknowledge country. Ti, gilinyan ganya, nianakaka yao yinbina waka, nianakai nianbina yakarumja, duminyagumiga dumiga ithawaka nirawamundamun imalan. Mumu bangada boma ininyalan waka, gaunan yakarumja, wutunarana. Hello beautiful friends. We gather on the lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see. She's On The Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,

bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive. She's on the money. She's on the money. Hello and welcome to She's On The Money. The podcast is here to show you investing isn't just for the rich. It's for you too, unless you're rich and you're listening to this. Then it's for all of us. Oh, no, you know what?

Rich people might like this episode. That's true. Market recap. Exactly. And everyone's welcome here, rich and poor and everything in between. If you love a bit of gossip, don't we all? We do. We do.

We really do. I don't want to be involved, but I want to know about your cousin's brother's friend. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Get your popcorn ready, everyone, because this is the episode for you. it's our 2025 share market recap where we look at who made ridiculous returns what everyone was suddenly obsessed with where the money actually flowed and what it all says about how people

were really feeling about their money last year i'm beck syed and with me is the woman who is more invested in the share market drama than anyone i know victoria divine i'm so ready for this me too these episodes are my favorite and this year is all about investing and just more investing content and like the juicy stuff and I feel like if you thought that investing is boring up until now sit down strap in get your popcorn because it's not no fun it's exciting it's exciting I think it's really smart to kind of frame it in this way where it's like it almost feels like we're watching a reality tv show 100% and this episode is coming out in March instead of earlier in the year because some of you may have heard a little bit of gossip about my life

I actually had a baby in January so I was just a little bit busy so I took some time off recording but I'm back and I missed it and yeah that's just how long it takes but also we needed all the financial reports to come out so the soonest you would have got this episode was February anyway so March like that's pretty good that's pretty good that's pretty good it's incredible you just had a literal baby I did and it she's in the corner literally yeah you might actually be able to hear it exactly and i'm so excited to get back into it guys and it's my favorite type of episode where i do get to gossip about my favorite topic and that my friends is the share market and we say this every single time we do an episode like this because one i'm just an anxious

girly yeah two i hold a financial services license so i have a legal obligation to remind you that past performance is not a reliable predictor of future performance and the shares and etfs in this episode are not featured because we recommend that you invest them but rather this episode is purely for educational purposes, for helping you understand the market better. Wow, that was so smooth. That wasn't scripted. That is incredible. I want to clip that and just put that disclaimer everywhere.

I think everyone would. It's important because I don't ever want someone in our community to listen to this episode and go, oh my gosh, that ETF that Bec and Victoria were talking about, I'm going to go invest in that. Because the reason we're talking about these things is not because they're good investment opportunities, but just to understand the market better. I mean, they could be great investment opportunities. And as we're going to see, some people made a lot of money back. But just because it performed in one year doesn't mean that it's going to be consistent. Like it could have surged for a plethora of reasons and we'll get into it. So I want to start by asking, Bea, what was the

big investing story of 2025? Right. There has been a lot of chatter about this recently. And I feel like I want to caveat this a little bit because the state of the world is very different right now than it was in 2025. And one of the ETFs that we're going to talk about is war related. And I just want to caveat that there, it's obviously not a recommendation, but I can't change what has happened in the past. We're just retrospectively looking at what performed the best and the top performing ETF is involving drones. Okay. I don't know if it's like a trigger warning thing I just feel the need to share that up front because I don't want you thinking, oh my gosh, you're so insensitive talking about how well performing something that's so negative is.

But the reality is it is what it is. But ETFs in general, I would say hot topic again. So if you're in the She's On The Money community, you'll be probably thinking, Victoria, they never left. Like we've been talking about them for years. And yes, we have. but when it comes to market trends people haven't been that interested in them and it's not just like a headline kind of hype anymore there's actual data that backs this up so more australians

are now investing through etfs than ever before and money is flowing in record highs which is kind of cool yeah let's pretend beck that that was you and i i have a feeling yeah i think it was us i think it was us we started talking about them more we've been harping on about them for years and now you guys have finally caught up. So she's on the money community investing. So in 2025, the Australian ETF market closed with a total of, sit down, $330.6 billion in funds under management or FUM, if you're an industry bro. FUM, not FUN, FUM, which is an all-time high and a 34% growth on the year.

Okay, yeah, that's a lot. Investors actually added $53 billion of brand new money into the ETF market last year. Oh, my God. New cash money. Yeah. I actually am really curious to know how much of that, because I didn't invest before you. And so I'm sure there's a lot of people with the same story. It must be exactly the same for every single person in the market.

Dare I say. Yeah. The previous record was actually $30 billion. So to jump to $53 billion, that's a big jump and we love to see it. There are now, Bec, 453 exchange-traded products trading on the ASX and CBOE, 71 new products launched in the year. Would that be like apps or things like that? No, they're just ETFs. Oh, I see.

So brand new ETFs were traded on the ASX, which is really sexy. But last year, 71 new ETF products became the reality. And like, I say that in a way that you're probably like, okay, cool, V. Historically, there was like a handful. Yeah. Like to have 71 new options, like there is an option for everything. Like if you're interested in tech, there's an ETF for that. If you're interested in women only led boards on companies, there is an ETF for that. You want to work with agriculture?

Fantastic. You want to invest in marijuana? Great. There's an ETF for that. There's literally an ETF to fit what you're interested in. I love that. I really like that. Which is really exciting.

It makes it more exciting for people that don't know about shares. Like, hey, just invest in something that you really are interested in. So the very thing that I have been banging on about in Get This, Bec, nearly a thousand episodes of the podcast. Wow. Insane. It's not a niche idea anymore. Like when I started as a financial advisor, Bec, which was honestly, I don't want to talk about it. It's been more than 10 years now.

Terrifying. But when I started as a financial advisor, there were caps on everything. So like there were funds that I thought were really exciting because like they had these like, you know, international tech companies that personally I couldn't afford to access because I didn't have $20,000 to invest back. Yeah. And that's what the caps were. And now you're telling me that I can invest for like one cent.

I know. Isn't that great? Like the idea that you got into the share market with $10 of free money and started investing and now have more than a thousand dollars invested as an individual in so many different assets that align to your values yeah that way back then if you told baby victoria she would have been like oh no that must be a scam like that can't be real because like it's not accessible like you have to have x amount and like the clients that i was dealing with would you know break up their portfolio over four different funds or something but they had 100

grand to play with. What? Unrelatable. Totally. We love accessibility. But people are now kind of clocking what ETFs do, how they work and the power of them. And they're becoming a mainstream strategy. Yeah, that's so cool. So what were the big shifts in how people were investing? All right, let's paint a picture of what 2025 looked like. So we're going to go back to 2024. We're living in the past. Okay. So good at that. Yeah, same. And we're going to talk about how Australians were investing. So it was very concentrated in big US or American ETFs. So funds that tracked the S&P 500, which is just the top 500 companies in America, and the NASDAQ were really, really popular. Growth was the theme. So lots of people were investing in big tech and

there was even huge money at that point in time flowing into Bitcoin ETFs, which was called the iShares Bitcoin Trust. If you want to look that one up on the ASX, their ticker code is IBIT, I believe. And that tells us that in 2024, investors were really confident with the US economy. If a majority of people investing in ETFs are picking American, you could probably assume that they're pretty confident with the economy that America has. They were very confident in concentrating in mega cap tech. So what mega cap is, it's like, it just means big organizations. So in the investing world, you might hear the term small caps and big caps being thrown around. You might look, I just have a regular size cap on. But big is just big companies. Small is just

small companies. And a lot of people were actually more willing to take on volatility. They were willing to see the ups and downs of the market for higher returns sure which you know you guys might be as well because you're you're doing your risk profile and you're a high growth or a growth investor but people were very confident in riding that momentum and being able to focus on growth okay let's move forward let's look at 2025 the biggest inflows and when I say inflows that just means where new money is coming from yeah that was shifting in the Australian market more towards Australian broad ETFs. Okay. So you entered the market back and I feel like this is a really good example. You didn't go for an American company first. You went for something homegrown. Yes,

I did. Because you were just comfy with it, right? I was. And I kind of like knew, like there were some things that were more familiar sounding, you know? Yeah, definitely. We did have more global diversified share ETFs rather than just the US and more defensive options were introduced like global bond funds, subordinated debt funds, which I'll get to, don't worry high dividend strategies and even high interest cash ETFs so people were getting a little bit worried yeah but like that makes sense because like and I say this a lot on the podcast mainly because it's meme culture mainly because we're all on social media but and I don't know how much I want to tick off Trump at the moment but like he kind of lost his mind a little

bit yeah yeah like he was saying some pretty rash things yeah we started to feel a little less confident in the economy that he was creating it's not just him there's lots of things that go into that right but like as a really good example he felt a bit unhinged yeah yeah i mean i wouldn't trust him with my baby yeah yeah but like that's just it right yes you can feel that uneasiness you can feel the tension you can feel that like oh this is a bit delulu like this is probably a the NQR. And that is a completely different mood and sentiment from 2024 where people were investing in growth options, like the feelings, the vibes had changed. Right. And like, there's obviously a lot to it and we'll get into it, but I think that we can all agree that we understand

a vibe shift. We all agree that, yeah, he was a bit unhinged and we didn't particularly understand what he was getting up to, but instead of doubling down on one market and us going, yeah, that's still great let's go and having one growth story investors are now spreading their exposure a little bit more broadly yeah and it's because it makes us feel a bit safer right like they are thinking more about income and diversification and preserving their capital and liquidity so being able to get rid of their investments ASAP and have it back in cash if they wanted to because we're all a little bit more anxious yes and that's okay that's okay because it's an opportunity for good investors but I think that that story is relatable and it suggests that the

market has moved from let's call it aggressive optimism yeah okay we were like yeah let's go hard let's go growth like we don't mind we can go up and down in 2024 to more having a measured shift towards building resilient portfolios and hedging our bets a little bit and rather than chasing the hottest thing on the market we're like but what's tried and true and tested because we just want consistency at this point. You mentioned a few types of funds with bonds and debt in the name, and I don't really know what they are. So can you explain what they mean? Yeah, I said I'd get to them. Thank you. This is my time to shine. Amazing. So the two top funds in the top 10 inflow ETFs, they're not actually shares at all. Okay. No shares. They're actually about lending

money. And they were new additions to the top 10 inflow this year. So at number four, we have the Vanguard Global Aggregate Bond Index ETF. Easy. Rolls off the tongue. So easy. Just rolls off the tongue. The ASX ticker code is VBND. And also we'll make a fact sheet so you guys can look this up.

You don't have to write all these things down. It's okay. We'll put it down. And then at number eight, we had the VanEck Australian Subordinated Debt ETF. It's a very, it feels nice when you say that, subordinated. Yeah, it's because it feels a little bit like they're listening. ah you know like subordinate like they're you know under us kind of like you feel strong yes i see but their asx ticker code is subd and those are both absolute mouthfuls like they didn't name

it like the happy sunshine fund they didn't make it easy for us did they they were like seriously do you know what if you were scared of etfs we're gonna make you really scared of these ones we're gonna give them complicated names totally it's like hey we don't need to make it more what's the word I'm looking for? Discouraging? Yeah, it's a bit discouraging. But what I can tell you with absolute certainty, and I'm sorry, Vanguard, love you. VanEck, also love you. Those were clearly named by mediocre middle-aged white men. Yeah. Yeah, you just can tell. Just got a vibe about it. Just got a vibe about it. I'm just picking up where they're putting down. But anyway, instead of them being like a basket of shares, like I've explained before, like a normal

ETF. When you buy a bond or a debt fund like these, you're actually lending money and getting paid interest on it. So Vanguard Global Aggregate Bond Index ETF. Wow. Is a basket of bonds. Cute. It's cute. That's cute. That's much easier. Yes. You just said basket of bonds. Yeah. That's a nice name. That makes sense. Absolutely. But it's a basket of bonds and we have a whole episode on what a bond is, how it works, and I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes. So if you're like heck in Victoria, please just go listen to that. And basically what it does is it lends money to governments and large companies all over the world. It is very diversified and it even hedges for currency, which just means that it tries to smooth out exchange rate swings for Australian

investors. Oh, cool. So you know how like when you're going on a holiday, Bec, you start looking up the exchange rate to get the best rate because you're like, oh, if we buy today, maybe I'll get a few more cents to spend in America because the exchange rate is corked. It basically means that you don't have to do that and worry about the exchange rate. Oh, great. Yeah. So people buy this stuff. So they buy the Vanguard Global Agribond Index ETF to get a steady income, to reduce overall risk in their portfolio, to balance out shares and add stability when the market is feeling really uncertain. Okay. So like pretty vanilla reasons. Fair enough. Yeah. But a mouthful so it's actually not that hard yeah when you put it like that it's not that complex okay

it doesn't need quite as long you didn't need to be so dramatic about it and then the second one is the van neck australian subordinated debt etf and it actually puts money into loans made to major australian banks and companies got you so if i was to take out a loan for a house for example and the interest rate was like five percent yeah and someone was investing in debt in this of the money that the banks borrow to lend to you that's crazy and so maybe the interest you make on that is like similar to the interest the person's paying and it makes sense as to why people are probably a little bit interested in it right now right yeah good with the cash right yes that's really really true okay i'm gonna i'm gonna look into basically that one it's australian and it

makes loans to major australian banks and companies but they're actually a specific loan that pays a higher interest rate because they carry slightly more risk than regular bonds. Got you. So, you know, there's a trade-off. We have a risk-reward chart. We know that. We know that the more risk you take, the more reward you could potentially get. But you've got to carry the risk. For sure. Okay. Okay. So, why are they riskier? Okay. So, subordinated debt. Yeah.

You said it sounds sexy. It does. What the heck is it? It's basically a loan that sits lower in the repayment queue. Yep. Okay. So they're not going to get to you first. You know how I said before, subordinate, like you're the boss and there's a subordinate sitting below. I see, yes.

So you think it sounds safer, you think it sounds sexy, but it's not as sexy. So when a company borrows money, there's actually like a list of who gets paid first if things go wrong. Yep. And in this case, it's not you. And that's okay. That's a risk you're willing to take because they're paying a higher interest rate and we like that idea.

Yeah. But bonds will get paid before this type of debt gets paid out, which is why it's a higher risk fund with the potential for higher returns. I see. And it often appeals to people who are like, oh, I want higher yield than cash or government bonds, but I don't want to go and invest in a full share because there's a lot of volatility there. They are being invested in by people who are comfortable taking a little bit more risk for better returns. It's kind of like saying, I want more income than a basic savings account or a safe bond fund, but I actually just don't want the full rollercoaster of the share market. So it's not ultra safe.

It's also not high growth. It kind of sits in the middle for people who want a little bit more, but also don't want the full whole hog of the share market. Sure. Okay. Got you, got you. And then if you zoom out, I think that tells you a lot about the market sentiment, a lot about how we're picking up the vibe.

I see. A lot about how people are a little bit anxious or not sure about the share market and they're looking for a middle ground option where you're like, oh, my high interest savings account isn't really cutting it, but I'm also scared of the share market. I think it's really interesting. Even with all the volatility that's going on, investors, they didn't leave the market. They've just been picking different options that feel safer to them and they are more focused on income and stability.

I see. Very clever. Okay, I'm going to look into this. it sounds kind of enticing so but that's not advice so we've covered market sentiment and how investors were behaving i guess you could say but when we come back we're going to get into the stuff we all want to know what gave the highest returns so you'll want to stick around for that i reckon we do welcome back everyone now that we've unpacked where the investment money flowed in 2025 i need to ask the question we're all dying to know where were the biggest returns

Oh, and this is the thing I was caveating before. Yes. Because I'm like, oh, I don't really want to talk about it, but I do want to talk about it because I think a lot of people are like, cool, Victoria, Trump started World War III. You're in my DMs already asking, being like, what does this mean for me? Should I be pulling all of my money out of the share market? The answer is no, don't do that.

I've spoken before, and I think that you guys, if you listen to the show religiously, will probably remember that I've spoken about gold and how it dominated the money headlines last year. Like everyone was like, should I invest in gold? What's going on? And like gold prices absolutely surged. Like if hypothetically you were looking for an engagement ring last year, it's going to

be more expensive this year if you're buying a gold one, right? I see. And we might have to do a whole deep dive into investing in metals and resources, I reckon, because we only touched on gold. Yeah. For a little bit. Like we answered the questions. There are a few listener questions.

Yeah. And I feel like lots of people, side note, are also investing in silver recently. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, like, anyway, so while a lot of the inflows were going into broad market ETFs, bonds and even some cash, some of the biggest returns were actually coming from precious metals and resources. This is making sense because my silver clay little hobby has become very expensive.

Right, and when people say, oh, the share market doesn't impact me, yes, it does. Unfortunately. Your hobbies are expensive because of it. Yeah, okay. It's going to be another year until someone gets an engagement ring because of this. I know. Insane. Gosh.

Jess, stop asking. Seriously. And that honestly mirrors exactly what we're seeing more broadly, right? And when there's uncertainty in our market about inflation, about interest rates, which all I'm doing is talking to my team and to my community and to my clients about inflation rates, rates of growth or global growth. Investors often look for assets that feel like a store of value. Like you love a tangible thing. Yeah, absolutely. You just like to be able to see it.

touch it and like feel it and that's why people like property so much yeah because you can see it and you go but even if the market crashes i still have a house i still want this brick even if the market crashes i've got this bar of gold yeah very true that's what people feel right and gold tends to benefit from that narrative and then silver often moves alongside it with bigger swings like their little friends gold and silver go along together oh and when this happens with physical precious metals. It has like a ripple effect into the wider market, right? So I don't think it's going to come as a surprise that the mining industry was the standout performer in global and local markets with the BetaShares Global Gold Miners Currency Hedged ETF.

Why do they do this to us? I know. I mean, shorten it a little bit. But you can see where I'm going with it, right? Yeah. It led with a 148.84 return during 2025. Oh, my God. All these things, I'm like, I wish I jumped on this. Right? And that's why we've got to be in the market consistently.

But also, we can't compare ourselves. No. Because how were you to know? And also, will that continue? We don't know. Don't know. And nine out of the top 10 that I'm about to share with you, they were in this sector. Okay.

So for ETFs that focused on our local Australian shares, precious metals were represented in three of our top six performers, and the other three were from the same index, and they were Australian small caps ETFs. Small cap means small company. Yep. Small cap while you're wearing a cap. Companies on the share market are often grouped by sizes. Okay. So they'll go large caps. They're big.

They're known as like the giants. Think of like Apple, Microsoft, like big dogs. And then think of maybe like major banks or like really big dog mining companies. And then small caps are smaller companies that are kind of further down on the list. They're still listed on the stock exchange, but maybe they're newer companies. They're earlier in the stages of growth and they're smaller in value. Yeah. But they often grow quicker.

Okay. So that's kind of sexy. And because they're smaller, they often tend to be a little bit more volatile and then they can grow quickly, but they can also fall much harder. Sure. Like they might not get funding next round and therefore, that's what they say, but they're more sensitive in the economic cycle. Whereas, you know, you see like the National Bank of Australia, like their share price

might come down, but they're not leaving the market, are they? Like they're not going anywhere. I see. They're a bit more secure. So when small caps are among the best performers, it actually often suggests that investors are willing to take on more risk in certain parts of the market. We're pretty confident, right? Sure.

And it can signal optimism about domestic growth and confidence in the economic outlook, which sounds like a complicated way of being like, we think everything's going well, right? So the 2025 local market gave us a bit of a personality spill, and I found it quite interesting. So miners were doing really, really well, which often happens in uncertain environments. And then small caps were doing really, really well, which usually reflects risk appetite and growth expectations. And I think that's a pretty interesting mix because we're kind of split. Yeah. We're not all in agreeance about what the best thing is and what's going on in the market. Yes, that's very true.

Okay. And so I'm wondering about like individual shares. Yeah. And this is where it gets spicy or a little bit interesting because while metal and resources were, I guess, the theme of 2025, the standout individual share on the ASX, it wasn't a minor. it was a company called drone shield yes okay and this is maybe a little bit topical at the moment but like their growth had nothing to do with what's going on at the moment in the economy okay because this was all in 2025 before any of this was announced but if you haven't heard of

them they're an australian defense tech company that builds counter drone systems so detecting and disabling drones around military sites, airports and big infrastructure. Okay. And you can probably understand that right now that's pretty topical. And it finished the year up 300% and the share price surged sharply off the back of a number of different major defence contract wins, rapid revenue growth, increased global attention on counter drone technology and heightened geopolitical tensions, which has kind of been reiterated with what's happened this year right yeah like yeah they weren't in a sad way they

weren't wrong no absolutely and they did need this yeah and that's really sad but if you zoom out it really does make sense with everything that's happening globally like defense spending has been ramping up and governments are pouring money into like lots of security and lots of technology so I don't think this was random hype by any stretch of the imagination it was kind of all tied to a very real increase in demand it's sad and but yeah but it makes sense it makes sense it does make sense as women we need to understand this and understand how it's working and why it's working totally we don't want to go in that like yeah personally that's just not an investment for me 300 up oh that's sexy i know but like that's just not where i want to make my money yeah it's

not it doesn't sit right it doesn't sit right and that's okay if you're doing that pop off i love that for you. So fine. Like we're all different and we all make different decisions, but I think that, yeah, we just need to understand it because like at the end of the day, this stuff impacts you. Yes, that's very true. What about in the US? America. America. Well, if you're subscribed to our newsletter, which you absolutely should be because I share money and invest in gossip all the time. And if you're not subscribed, like where are you? I'll put the link in the show notes. What are you doing? It's literally free. And if you've gotten this far into this episode And you like to hear me yap. You love the newsletter.

Oh, yeah. But if you are, you'd know that I spoke about how in 2025, NVIDIA became the first publicly traded company to surpass $5 trillion in a market cap. Trillion. So logic would tell you why it's up there. But no, it actually wasn't one of them. Sorry, NVIDIA. But one of the biggest percentage performers in the US market in 2025 was actually a company that most of us have probably heard of and used their products before it's a bit of a throwback sandisk sandisk what are you guys doing here yeah i know right you probably were like oh she's gonna say apple like she's gonna say something yeah or maybe temple and web

star oh oh yeah but the company that is responsible for all of your sd cards every single one of them that I put in these cameras and in these podcast recording machines, they also make USB sticks. And they had a massive year. Oh, it's about time. SamDisc, they need to get a lot of, I feel like they, we need to hype them more. Oh, I don't know if we need to hype them more because this year,

an increase of 567%. I think they're hyping themselves up at this point. Honestly, it's their time to shine. Let me come to your Christmas party. But what happened? Well, part of the story comes down to something in finance speak called a spinoff. Oh, okay. I love a spinoff. Yeah, we'll love a spinoff. And a spinoff is basically when a larger company separates one of its divisions and turns it into its own company

or its own standalone business that is on the share market. So SanDisk used to actually sit inside a bigger company and that bigger company was called Western Digital and they were trading together as one big company. And then earlier in the year, so earlier in 2025, Western Digital spun off SanDisk and they were like, let's make this its own company, meaning it became its own listed entity. So it actually wasn't on the share market individually before this. And once it was a standalone company, investors could go, oh my gosh, I wasn't that keen on Western Digital because I didn't love everything they did, but I love an SD card or a USB. They could go and invest in it individually. But investors weren't investing in a company that just makes SD cards.

They were investing in a company sitting right in the middle of a data explosion. So like everything is crazy at the moment when it comes to data and needing to save data because we know that AI is taking off. You've got to save that stuff. Otherwise, it has no memory. Yeah. Right. Every single AI model being trained, every single cloud service that is expanding at

the moment and every single new data center that's being built needs somewhere to save their data to live. Where's their data going to live? And SanDisk is a flash memory and storage business, so when demand for data explodes, the need to store it also explodes, and then that demand directly flows through companies like them. Oh my god, this feels like a Robbie Williams situation. It's kind of fun. I love Robbie Williams. I know. We're so old.

No! This is incredible. And it was something that we spoke about historically in our Investing in Tech and AI episode, which I'm obviously also going to link in the show notes if you missed it. And at the time of recording this particular episode, it was up a massive 1,250% in the last 12 months. So I think it's going to be super interesting to see what's going to go on with this stock in 2026. Can it actually continue with that growth or is it going to be a little bit, you know, nuanced? Is it going to like drop down? Who knows? I don't know. But it just, I think it's a super interesting thing to look into. That's, this is insane. How do people even hear about this stuff?

Someone probably kind of thought, oh, actually, this is probably a good one because they've started looking into it and started putting their thinking cap on but personally I don't have the capacity to do that so that's why I never invest in any more in individual if you guys can hear Campbell has maybe joined the recording and doesn't know how to be quiet and is a squeaky squeaky newborn mommy needs to talk about shares baby so cute so it'll be super interesting to see where I guess that goes in the next year like will it be consistent or will it be different Like, is there going to be a market competitor that rises to, like, kind of rival them? I don't know.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the entire market in 2026, dare I say. Before we wrap up, are there any final thoughts you want to leave us with? I think 2025 told us something really important. Yeah. Firstly, Victoria Devine can conceal an entire pregnancy. Yes, that's one big important thing. That was pretty good. But also that the average investor wasn't trying to pick the next winner.

they were trying to build a really secure portfolio that could hopefully survive whatever 2026 throws at them yeah because while it's really fun to look at i guess 300 return and 500 return purely for the gossip those are exceptions like you can't predict that because otherwise i'd be so rich beck oh yeah and i guess this is why you hear me always banging on about the same things like be consistent diversify your portfolio and all the boring stuff because girl you can't predict it and the best investment strategy is actually just building something that will work in the years where gold thrives or in the years where tech is incredible or in the years where sand disk absolutely blew it out of the water or even in the years where we've got a lot of

political uncertainty because you can't predict what's going to thrive and not survive in the years to come like let's just make something sustainable yeah and the best investment strategy is just building something consistent and the data actually backs this up. So more Australians than ever are choosing ETFs and they're adding bonds and thinking about income and they're thinking about the resilience of their portfolio. They're not chasing what's coming in hot because that's, yeah, I feel like that's my favourite type of investing story from 2025. We're all just becoming basic bitches. Very, very, very well said. What a perfect place leave it I've learned so much personally today and if you have to don't forget to hit subscribe

we've got more investing episodes on the way and obviously if you cannot wait for our next investing episode we actually have a whole investing hub on our website where you will find free investing freebies courses and investment episodes all in one place all at the same time so we'll link that in the show notes for you as well we'll see you guys on Friday bye guys 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.

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