The Small Cap index is lying to you with Andrew Mitchell

Australia’s small-cap index might have looked calm in FY26, but beneath the surface it was anything but. Ophir Founder and Senior Portfolio Manager Andrew Mitchell joins us to unpack record sector dispersion, why reporting season exposed cracks in the earnings outlook, and how AI & data centre spending are reshaping opportunities for investors. Andrew also takes us inside Ophir’s bottom-up stock-picking process and explains why Codan remains one of the portfolio’s highest-conviction ideas.

In this episode:

00:00 Small caps: calm on the surface, chaos underneath

05:45 What reporting season revealed about Australian earnings

09:45 AI, data centres & the changing CapEx trade

14:33 Southern Cross Electrical & Australia’s data centre boom

17:57 Why reporting season volatility is getting harder to navigate

21:56 Inside Ophir’s small-cap investment process

28:44 Why Ophir avoids commodity-driven sectors

33:09 The Codan thesis: gold detectors, drones & defence spending

Stocks & ETFs Mentioned: BHP (ASX: BHP), Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), REA Group (ASX: REA), SEEK (ASX: SEK), JB Hi-Fi (ASX: JBH), Cleanaway Waste Management (ASX: CWY), Integral Diagnostics (ASX: IDX), Monash IVF Group (ASX: MVF), Southern Cross Electrical Engineering (ASX: SXE), SKS Technologies (ASX: SKS), NRW Holdings (ASX: NWH), GenusPlus Group (ASX: GNP), Codan (ASX: CDA), DroneShield (ASX: DRO), TPG Telecom (ASX: TPG), Afterpay, Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR), MasTec (NYSE: MTZ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI)

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