Charlie Aitken

Charlie Aitken

Switzer Expert

Read Charlie's Profile

Charlie Aitken is the Managing Director of Bell Potter Wholesale.

Charlie started his financial markets career in 1993 on the floor of the Sydney Futures Exchange dealing SPI futures for clients of Ord Minnett/Jardine Fleming.

One of his clients was investment bank County Natwest, who in 1996 asked Charlie to join their Institutional Equities Dealing Desk in Sydney. Charlie worked with County Natwest and its future owners Salomon Smith Barney and Citigroup until joining Southern Cross Equities in 2003. When Bell Potter took over Southern Cross Equities in 2008, Charlie remained in his role as Head of Institutional Dealing until June 30, 2011.

His influential daily stock market newsletter ‘Ringing the Bell,’ formerly called ‘Under the Southern Cross ,’ is widely followed by institutional and private investors alike.

Over his 18 years working in financial markets, Charlie has experienced both bull and bear markets, including the Asian crash, the tech bubble and bust, 9/11, the resources boom, and the global financial crisis. He has met with hundreds of companies and investors all around the world. He has worked in both large and small firms, but has always been focused on the core business of finding undervalued stocks and investing with conviction.

Latest Commentary

Large cap portfolio: which stocks to swap

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I was having a look at my high conviction large cap recommended portfolio to see whether it needed some adjustment. While it’s got some riskier stocks, it’s actually quite conservative and full of high yield industrials already.

While Seven Group (SVW), Santos (STO), BHP Billiton (BHP) and Fortescue (FMG) have underperformed, the rest of it has been respectable. As I have grown older, I have realised the key to a successful model portfolio management is actually resisting the temptation to sell winners. The real trick is to cut losers.

I wrote a few months ago that Santos (STO) didn’t have yield support and had capex risk. I wrote that I would give it the benefit of the doubt in the portfolio and stick with it. That was a mistake, as a couple of weeks ago they came out with a capex blowout that took the stock down another leg. It was a bad call of mine not to cut it on the first hiccup.

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