5 Companies Quietly Taking a Cut of Your Everyday Life

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]The prediction market's coming through is a huge headwind. It'll be on eight times earnings by 2028.

[00:00:04]>> Hey, how you doing? And welcome to Buy or Sell, Equity Mates' newest show dedicated to bringing you the hottest ideas in markets. [music] I'm Ali Selby, and today we're going to be taking a look at five stocks that are quietly clipping the ticket on our everyday lives. I want to know if I can profit from the stocks that are profiting from us. To do that, we're joined by James Rodda from Antipodes and Chloe Stokes from Forager. I also want to say a big thank you to Good Research for sponsoring this episode and helping keep all our content free for our viewers. With that, let's get into our episode. First up today, we have Wise Group PLC. It provides cross-border financial services for personal and business customers globally. Clips the ticket on transfer fees. Chloe, let's start with you today. Is it a buy or sell?

[00:00:47]>> It's a buy for us. It's actually one that we own at the moment. There are a couple of things we really like about this business. The first one is they charge an average take rate of about 51 basis points on transactions. And that's a far cry from, say, the 4% and often hidden fees that you see from big banks.

[00:01:08]And there's a lot of fear out there around kind of AI and vibe coding eroding away demand for software, but Wise isn't just code. It's a global regulatory and banking web that took over a decade to build. They've got direct rails into central banks. So, that's a moat that is going to be a bit harder for AI to disrupt.

[00:01:30]>> It's amazing though, the card when you're traveling overseas.

[00:01:33]>> Exactly. There are a lot of people that are using Wise and loving it. It makes things a lot more simple, I think.

[00:01:38]Another thing we love about it is they're really focused on keeping their costs down. So, they have a cost advantage, but what they do is they share that with their customers, which then brings in more volume and then further cost advantage. So, it's kind of like a flywheel effect, and management are really open about this. They say they want to be profitable on all of their transactions, but anything in excess of that they want to invest at getting better, faster, and cheaper for customers. And we've seen that in the past with things like Amazon and Costco, and it's worked really well for them.

[00:02:09]>> Mhm. Yes, it's doing extremely well.

[00:02:11]It's gross margins are like 80%, which is like a software business rather than maybe a banking business, but its share price has been very volatile over the last year. It's been quite the ride.

[00:02:21]Over to you, James. Do you think this one's a buy or sell?

[00:02:24]>> Yeah, look, it's a stock we owned uh for a period of time and did reasonably well off, but we're we're a sell right now.

[00:02:30]Uh the reason we're a sell, I just go back to the history and I think they started a very innovative product. Um everything that Chloe said is is is accurate, but they haven't expanded the platform for consumers uh enough or businesses.

[00:02:44]So, on the consumer side, you've got Revolut uh that has really added in more investing functionality and banking functionality and lending functionality and crypto and everything, and expanded the wallet. So, that loss laid on foreign exchange, or let's call it low-margin foreign exchange business, is only part of their platform. Uh they have profits from all the other products to reinvest uh and attack and win more customers.

[00:03:08]So, they're accelerating away from Wise in terms of their growth, whereas they used to be quite similar.

[00:03:13]Uh Wise is sort of more of a a steady growth. Probably the other thing with Wise that's a bit tricky is this idea that they give customers everything back. And so, the excess liquidity that people leave in those accounts was was a big source of profits. As interest rates went up, they're committed to giving the depo- or the people leaving those balances market interest rates, let's call it, and they haven't done that yet. So, as they do that, there's a big headwind to profits coming over the next few years. And so, overall on a let's call it a near 20 multiple, we think we'll we'll just leave it out and wait for the Revolut IPO.

[00:03:47]>> Okay. Next up today, we have UK grocery player Tesco. It's up 21% over last year. Is this inflation crisis that we're seeing because of the Middle East, everything that's happening there, is that impacting prices at Tesco? Is that helping them?

[00:04:01]>> Yeah, I think these businesses, supermarkets, are always get blamed by governments. So, um you know, maybe a foreign government starts a war and uh you know, there's not enough fertilizer for so food prices go up or in the UK uh inflationary policies from government, food prices go up, let's blame the supermarkets rather than blame ourselves. So, they've got some regulatory risk and no doubt as inflation comes through it does hurt margins in the short term and it does hurt volumes. So, we think inflation is broadly not positive for these companies, you know, but overall supermarkets can tend to pass it on, so it's not not not the biggest issue.

[00:04:37]Probably we would say we're a sell uh having owned the stock for for many years. I think it's at the highest multiple it's traded at for an extended period, still reasonable around around 15 times. Uh but the UK's a six-player uh market. So, you've got uh the four traditional players and then two discounters, Aldi and Lidl, that keep taking a lot of share. Uh and between the six of them there's, you know, 85% market share.

[00:05:04]There's not really much room for anyone to grow.

[00:05:07]>> Okay, over to you, Chloe. Do you agree is that one a buy or sell?

[00:05:10]>> That's a sell for us and we also have owned it in the past. We owned it, I think, in late 2022 and its role in the portfolio was as a defensive cash generator. It played that role really well for us and I think that was because it was so cheap at the time. I think it was less than 10 times earnings back then and that was largely because the market was concerned around the discount grocers like Aldi and Lidl coming in and just eroding away Tesco's market share. When we invested back then, we thought there was a bit of evidence that that was no longer the case and Tesco had managed to kind of maintain that market share for some time and they still have I think they're 28% share at the moment so they're the largest but like James said at 15 times earnings it's just not the bargain that it once was and that's because I think the entire market no longer believes that Aldi and Lidl are going to erode away the share. They are there, they're great for consumers cuz they're keeping prices low but that market share concern is just not at the same level that it was and it's so that's why it's not the bargain that it was when we bought >> You know, I think they did really well online so that natural market share is in the high 20s but they were 40-50% online market share and all the other grocers have now got compelling strategies to take online share as well as Ocado which is the you know the online online only player in the UK. So just everywhere they're operating things are going to get a little bit more difficult.

[00:06:38]>> Okay, next up today we have Flutter Entertainment its share price has plummeted around 60% over the last year.

[00:06:44]What's happening there Chloe? Why is the house not winning anymore?

[00:06:48]>> Yeah, so viewers might know Flutter through kind of Sportsbet in Australia or FanDuel in the US. It's an online sports betting platform and the share price is down really significantly and this is the one of the reasons we sold it as well because we owned it from late 2021 to sometime in 2025. Big reason for us selling was the rising popularity of Kalshi prediction markets. So that's a regulated exchange where you can bet on the outcomes of real world events. Think interest rates, the Oscars or sports of course and the playing field's not really level because Kalshi doesn't have to pay the same level of taxes as bookmakers do. So there's a lot of fear in the market that Flutter's moat is going to be completely eroded. We don't think that's the case, we think there's still a large kind of sticky customer base but just that we're not being well enough remunerated or compensated for the incremental risks at play there. We also had a concern when we initially invested and you can see this playing out as well and that's just that governments are going to keep taking a bigger portion of the pie, which means less profits left over for shareholders.

[00:07:58]That being said, this one is still high on our watch list. It's one we're watching closely and there is a right price for it. It's lower than today, I think. Okay, what's your target price?

[00:08:09]>> [laughter] >> I think asking for a target price is so difficult because say for example, it's trading at 14 times earnings. I might say to you right now, I'd love this business at 10 times earnings, but we don't exist in a vacuum. So something else has probably happened to make the business trade at 10 times earnings and then your target price will change again. But I mean if it got down to 10 times, I'd probably be looking a lot closer, that's for sure.

[00:08:31]>> Okay, over to you James. What's your thoughts on Flutter?

[00:08:34]>> Yeah, look, also a sell. Another one that we owned. We got out near the top, which was which was quite lucky for similar reasons, but the prediction market's coming through is a huge headwind and on top of that, the business still makes quite a lot of profit out of the UK and and Australia.

[00:08:49]And I think governments in both those countries um uh despite, you know, the fact most of their customers love using the products and uh get a lot of enjoyment out of them, have decided they're evil and they're bad and so and so tax rates are going up and tax rates uh and you're even seeing this in a couple of the the US markets now. So I think it's just that huge market opportunity has been taken by prediction markets. Uh you know, regulatory challenges in their in their in their older markets. Um and then there's a profit a unit profit issue as well. So they were the first really in the US to uh do multis really well and they had the best app.

[00:09:29]And so if you wanted to bet on uh you know, first basket in this game, high score and the winner.

[00:09:35]>> I don't even know what that means. It's like [laughter] a foreign language to me. I stay clear of all gambling.

[00:09:40]>> Uh like corporate expect that they made a lot of money out of these products because you would multiply the win rate on a lot and and so that that competition caught up and and that was for a long time, I think um as we were you know, the share price steadily climbed with the prediction markets coming in on the basis that maybe their competitors, the traditional sports betting competitors could do this, but the prediction markets companies couldn't do this. And they've now introduced these multi multi products as well. Um and have proven they can innovate around that and that's really I think the core of that that that their profits is is is those. They don't make huge margins on head-to-head. So as as that profit um profit engine gets attacked, you know, it's sort of it looks a bit bleak, I think.

[00:10:27]>> How how far could it fall?

[00:10:29]>> They're reinvesting into prediction markets to try to compete. So uh US government's been pretty clear at a federal level they're going to allow this and support this product. Uh so if they do what they've done in when they opened state by state across the US and invest hundreds of millions of dollars with an each opening, you know, their profits in the US would disappear.

[00:10:50]They'll they'll become loss making again and it will eat into their profits of uh of the rest of the world. Now, we don't think they'll do that, but there is a tail risk where they do that to try to take market share back from um Kelce and and and the other prediction markets. And so in that case, I think the market will respond really badly. It's still a lot of risk.

[00:11:10]>> [laughter] >> Okay, we're going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back with some stock picks from our guest.

[00:11:19]Finding great ASX small caps is genuinely difficult. Most people just don't have the hours in the day to dig through annual reports and company updates. And even if you love doing the research, there's There's better than getting ideas from people who do this full-time. Good Research sends you two in-depth reports every month on ASX-listed small- and mid-cap companies.

[00:11:40]We're talking real detailed analysis focused on the kind of opportunities most investors aren't even aware of. I should say though membership is limited to 200 people and there are fewer than 50 spots remaining. Equity Mates listeners get 10% off a 1-year subscription saving $550 or 30% off 2 years, which is $3,300 back in your pocket. Just use the code Equity Mates at checkout. Go to good-research.com.au to learn more.

[00:12:11]Okay, we're back. We've asked our guests to bring along a tall booth stock that we can also profit from, something that actually buying. James, starting with you today, what's your pick?

[00:12:20]>> My pick's uh Chime Chime Financial. So, uh relates a little bit to what we're talking about with Wise earlier. So, this is a digital bank in the US. Why is it interesting from an industry perspective? There hasn't been a really successful online bank that's scaled up massively in the US like in some uh emerging markets you've seen.

[00:12:41]And these guys are the market leader.

[00:12:42]So, 10-15 million customers uh now use this as their their core bank. And so, these guys can come in with a much lower cost base, online only, and service that customer without charging them any fees.

[00:12:55]Not only charge them no fees, uh they can give them better rewards and cash back on their credit card. So, they're they're targeting that 50 to $100,000 earner, maybe the lower the lower income consumer.

[00:13:06]And the business is already profitable.

[00:13:09]It's the fastest growing bank in the US in terms of the number of new customers.

[00:13:13]So, uh 4 5 6 million new customers a year are joining and making it their core bank.

[00:13:20]It's profitable around 20% margin.

[00:13:22]Incremental profit margin is about 60-70% at the moment. So, as they scale, it's really a fixed cost technology business, and if they just keep doing what they're doing, they'll be on eight times earnings by 2028 and still growing, you know, 20% plus at that point, so you could expect I think a a decent rerating.

[00:13:41]>> Okay, over to you, Chloe. What's your tall boost pick for us? What can we profit from that's already profiting from us?

[00:13:47]>> So, it's a stock called Yeti.

[00:13:50]>> The drink bottles and That's right.

[00:13:52]>> and coolers, I think.

[00:13:53]>> and coolers. So, they produce, market, and distribute lifestyle products, they would call it, and drinkware and coolers are their two segments, but they are expanding into other categories like cookware, for example. So, Yeti was originally marketed as an outdoorsy brand. If you look at their advertising, they'll do something like throw a Yeti esky off the back of a ute, keep driving down the road, and then run back and pick it up and show you that it's still in perfect condition. They use lots of words like, you know, our products are over-engineered, and our products are indestructible. So, when you think about that market, you think about, you know, people camping out in the wilderness who don't want their eskies to get broken open by a bear, for example, if you live in Canada. But, these days, I'm sure you've seen Yeti drink bottles around the office. You're just as likely to see them at a kids daycare center or a park.

[00:14:46]So, that consumer base is really a lot broader than just outdoorsy people.

[00:14:50]>> Mhm.

[00:14:51]>> One of the things we really like about the business is the international opportunity. So, they're going well in the US, which was their first market and where they're listed. They're really strong in Australia and Canada, as well, so two very outdoorsy countries, but their international revenues are only around 23% of total. So, we think there's lots of room to grow there. And another thing we really like is that they've managed to perform well in what's been an absolutely awful macroeconomic environment for consumer discretionary. They've also had their own issues. They had a product recall back in 2024, which hit their revenue and margins, and they're dealing with things like tariffs, just like every other consumer company, and they're still managing to grow. So, we're really optimistic about what we could see from this company when the macroeconomic environment is more favorable. It's trading at around a 4% free cash flow yield. We think we should see kind of mid-single-digit growth and some margin expansion here. And management are also putting their money where their mouth is when they say the stock is undervalued, and they're repurchasing stock pretty aggressively. So, they bought back, I think, 9% of the current market capitalization last year in share buybacks. So, this is one of I think it's in our top 10 holdings, and it's one we're really excited about.

[00:16:04]>> Okay. Well, thank you both so much for your time today. I had a lot of fun. If you did, too, please let us know in the comment section below, and like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

[00:16:15]>> This podcast is intended for education and entertainment purposes only. Any advice is general advice and has not taken into account your personal financial circumstances. [music] Before acting on general advice, you should consider if it is relevant to your needs. If unsure, speak to a financial professional. The host of this podcast and their guests [music] may have positions in the companies mentioned. Equity Mates Media is an independent entity within the BetaShares Group and operates under Australian financial services license 540697.