Steve Johnson
Person
Steve Johnson is an investment manager at Forager Funds who focuses on public markets and technology-related investment themes.
What Steve Johnson has said on podcasts
50 statements
AI is a genuinely transformational technology.
“I think this is a genuinely transformational technology.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 3:43
Each new AI model is better than its predecessor.
“Every model that comes out is better than the one before it.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 4:25
AI is currently mainly a probabilistic content-generation tool.
“I think that's a really important thing to recognize about it. It's a probabilistic, I think at the moment mostly a content type tool.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 5:44
AI is often wrong when researching poorly documented small-cap companies.
“If it is, I wanna know what's happened with the CEO of this company yesterday, or, you know, in our world, small cap companies where there's not a lot of information about them, it's probably wrong 30 or 40% of the time”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 6:00
AI capability does not imply AI is the economical tool for an activity.
“there's actually going to be a lot of activities where you go, well, it can do it, doesn't mean it should.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 6:42
AI-related asset prices exceed his expectations for underlying business profits.
“the prices for almost anything that's associated with the space have become so disconnected from what I think those businesses are going to earn in profits that we just don't want to own them.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 7:31
AI is capital-intensive, with uncertain returns on invested capital.
“it is a very, very capital-intensive business. Are the returns going to be great on that capital? We don't know the answer to that yet.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 8:41
Firmus exhibits bubble-like investment behavior.
“this is for me, this is the epitome of bubble-like behaviour.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 9:31
Firmus faces high risks of cost overruns, delays, and disappointing returns.
“the baseline probability here for CapEx overruns and late delivery and the returns here not being what they've put in those slide decks is very, very, very high.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 9:43
Firmus may cost twice its estimate and take longer within 12 months.
“in 12 months' time it's this thing's going to cost us twice what we thought it was going to cost and it's going to take longer”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 9:55
AI investment profitability will become clearer within a few years.
“within a couple of years, we're going to start seeing whether the returns stack up in terms of profitability on this.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 10:54
AI investors will be disappointed by five-year returns.
“I think people are gonna be disappointed over a 5-year period about what sort of returns they earn.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 12:29
Limiting portfolio drawdowns contributes importantly to long-term returns.
“for us being defensive and making sure that the drawdowns are limited is a really important contributor to long-term returns.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 14:48
EML has been a disastrous investment over an extended period.
“EML in the Aussie fund, which has been an absolute disaster over a fairly long period of time.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 14:58
The global payments sector is unusually difficult and competitive.
“Globally, payments has been a very, very difficult sector. It's been more competitive than we had anticipated”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 15:36
Investors should exit positions when evidence invalidates the investment thesis.
“when you lay out your thesis and if you start getting evidence that you're wrong, I think moving on from those things and starting with a clean sheet of paper is really, really important.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 16:39
Pessimism toward software businesses was excessive.
“I think the pessimism that came in was way, way overdone.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 17:42
Xero is probably the most important software in his business.
“it's probably the most important piece of software in my business.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 18:20
Accounting software such as Xero is highly sticky.
“I think it's such, it's such a sticky software that that's, that's the characteristic that we're looking for there.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 18:45
Australian super funds are withdrawing money from small-cap stocks.
“we've got some structural things going on here in Australia in terms of super funds taking money out of small caps.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 20:39
Australian small caps need strong results to regain investor interest.
“We're gonna need some good results I think for people to get excited about things again.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 21:27
Annual predictions of a small-cap revival are wishful thinking.
“I think that's wishful thinking to be honest with you from fund managers that like where your livelihood depends on it.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 21:37
Small-cap purchases will not reliably produce sustained market re-ratings.
“this whole, we're going to buy this thing and the market's going to re-rate it, it's just not going to happen over a sustained period of time.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 21:44
Investors should buy businesses capable of growing into index-level companies.
“you need to be buying businesses that can either migrate into index level.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 21:52
Algorithmic trading has become widespread in markets.
“there's a lot of algorithmic money in the market now.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 23:36
Algorithms can drive share prices down after results miss expectations.
“the magnitude is almost irrelevant. If this result is worse, the algorithm has been taught that that is bad and share prices go down.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 23:46
Reduced market liquidity increases the cost of exiting investments.
“the cost of doing that is higher than it used to be because the liquidity's just not there.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 24:54
Catapult will soon reach margins supporting a four-times-revenue valuation.
“it is very soon going to be at margins that would justify 4 times revenue for a mature business.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 26:54
Catapult’s sporting-team customer base will keep growing for a long time.
“the number of sporting teams that are using the product is just going to keep growing for a very long time.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 27:21
Catapult remains in a customer-acquisition land-grab phase.
“I think we're still in the land grab phase here.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 28:11
Catapult has future pricing power.
“everyone understands that there is more pricing here at some point in time.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 28:31
Motorcycle Holdings has 20% of Australian motorcycle retailing.
“they are 20% of motorbike retailing in Australia.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 30:40
- on Motorcycle Holdings CFMoto distribution businessPositiveOct 5, 2026· Equity Mates Investing Podcast
CFMoto import distribution generates 80% of Motorcycle Holdings’ profitability.
“it's become 80% of Motorcycle Holdings' profitability is that import distribution business.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 31:52
Motorcycle Holdings trades at 6.5 times earnings with approximately a 7% franked yield.
“It trades at 6.5 times earnings. You're getting half of those earnings as a dividend. So it's a 7 fully franked dividend yield”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 32:19
Investors are excessively pessimistic about Australia relative to global markets.
“people are a bit— well, maybe running a global fund, I think relatively people are too pessimistic about Australia.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 33:30
Australia’s government debt-to-GDP ratio is approximately 40%, versus 120% in comparison markets.
“We are 40% government debt to GDP. They're 120%, right?”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 34:15
Australia’s household savings rate is approximately 8%, historically high.
“The savings rate's at 8%. That's historically high levels.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 34:46
Australia is better positioned than many countries to handle economic headwinds.
“I think the country is better placed to handle this than a lot of other places.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 35:01
Australian investors should maintain meaningful Australian-dollar exposure.
“if you're an Australian-based investor, you're gonna need Australian dollars. It should be an important part of your asset allocation.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 35:51
Australian equities may return approximately 8% annually over the next 30–40 years.
“Equities have done 8% per annum here over 120 years. And I think they'll do something similar over the next 30 or 40 years.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 36:19
Australian equity returns include a substantial fully franked dividend component.
“some of that return is in the form of fully franked dividends.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 36:55
Buying his house was a poor financial decision.
“It was a terrible financial decision, I've gotta tell you.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 38:58
Residential property may deliver approximately 2% net rental returns.
“If you look at the actual return, it's maybe 2% net or something that you get if you buy a house and you rent it out.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 39:31
The financial case for buying rather than renting has been weak for 15–20 years.
“That too has not stacked up for probably 15 or 20 years.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 39:47
If property appreciation stops, residential property becomes a very low-yield asset.
“if the capital gain stops working, then you're left owning an asset that's a very, very low yield asset.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 39:57
Higher mortgage rates did not reduce Australian property prices as expected.
“it did not smash property prices the way I thought it would have.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 42:28
A breakdown in property-appreciation psychology would seriously harm Australian property.
“If that breaks, that is the huge problem for Australian property.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 43:12
If Australians stop expecting appreciation, property downside becomes more significant.
“If it stretches out and if it actually breaks people's psychology and they start saying, well, this is not something that's going to appreciate, then it makes, for me, it makes the downside more significant”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 43:47
Investors should follow a written long-term investment strategy.
“Have a long-term strategy and stick to it.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 45:49
Staying invested tends to produce better outcomes than constant market timing.
“And my experience has been Just stick at it to do better.”
Open the episode · Steve Johnson: What the market is missing about the AI boomListen at 46:08
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
