The Point

Pendal profile: Meet our head of equities Crispin Murray

Pendal profile: Meet our small-cap portfolio managers Lewis Edgley and Patrick Teodorowski

Jim Taylor: What’s driving the ASX this week?

Crispin Murray: What’s driving the ASX this week?

Elise McKay: The headlines driving Aussie equities this week

Here are the main factors driving the ASX this week, according to Aussie equities analyst and portfolio manager ELISE MCKAY and reported by head investment specialist CHRIS ADAMS

Read Pendal’s latest weekly equities overview.

Crispin Murray: Where to find ASX opportunities amid ‘theme-driven’ market noise

Share prices are increasingly moved by popular themes like AI disruption, trade wars, and tariff fears – without regard to company fundamentals or long-term valuations.

As a result, quality Australian companies with sound outlooks and predictable cash flows are being indiscriminately sold off.

That’s creating opportunities for active fund managers, Pendal’s head of equities Crispin Murray told Morningstar’s 2025 investment conference in Sydney last week.

“We believe this is creating more distortions in the market. It means the amplitude of mispricing is greater, and it lasts longer.”

Global market dislocation means the ASX has a range of industrial companies with predictable cash flows and returns that have been sold down and offer opportunities for investors, he says.

“One example is CSL – one of Australia’s largest, most successful companies. Five years ago it was running high – at an over-40 multiple. It’s now down to about 22 times earnings,” he says.

Fears of the impact of tariffs on CSL are misplaced, assuming the company doesn’t do anything to respond – “and I think that’s where the market’s overreacting,” argues Crispin.

“We think the risk on the tariff front is being overstated, and that’s what’s providing you the opportunity.” Pendal owns CSL.

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