For a month where it seemed to rain non-stop, May could have been a lot worse. Here are some of my investing articles that you may have missed.

Stock Showdown

May saw the launch of a new regular feature for you all. Stock Showdown uses our analysts’ insights to pit two businesses and shares against each other. Sometimes from the same sector, sometimes not. Sometimes both from the ASX, sometimes not.

We kicked off by looking at how similar BHP and Rio Tinto are as investment propositions. See how our global mining analyst Jon Mills would go about comparing the two mining heavyweights (and which one he’d prefer to own) by reading here.

Like most other people that drive in Sydney, it feels like Transurban has a royalty stream on my every move. In the second Showdown, Adrian Atkins helped me compare TCL to the other ASX toll-road stock Atlas Arteria. Find it here.

Ask the analyst

Ask the analyst puts questions from myself and Morningstar readers to our equity research team. Send your questions about ASX companies and industries in our coverage to joseph.taylor@morningstar.com. They might appear in a future edition.

Esther Holloway got the ball rolling for us by answering a few questions that I had about the chemicals distributor Redox.

Redox is far from a household name, but it has grown like a weed for decades and remains a family business despite being listed. Go here to see Esther’s thoughts on this setup whether Redox’s growth story can continue.

Then later in the month, a reader got in touch to ask why Santos trades like an oil pure-play despite being more of a play on LNG.

Our energy analyst Mark Taylor shared some pretty compelling evidence for why this might be the case, without detracting from his view that investors are getting the company’s stock market valuation wrong. See Mark’s thoughts on Santos here.

Bookworm

My Bookworm column shares insights from business and investing writing that I find useful.

May’s first serving came from one of my favourite investing books of all time: Capital Returns.

I showed how Marathon Asset Management used their famed ‘capital cycle analysis’ to identify companies of superior quality. I also shared a holding of mine that I think fits the bill. You can find this article here.

I then shared a lightbulb moment from a book that pretty much everybody else rates as their favourite investing book. Yup, Ben Graham’s Intelligent Investor.

Go here to see how Graham distinguished between investing and mere speculation in just a few words.

Investing counsel from a chatbot

The final article I’ll plug today covers my rather enjoyable (and at times, baffling) journey into the world of using ChatGPT for investment counsel.

Following the advice of a conference speaker, I decided to ask the chatbot to impersonate three of my favourite investors and opine on some potential investments for my portfolio. You can see how it unfolded here.

The personal front

I usually chat about some kind of adventure or day-trip here, but it was a rather muted month on that front. Our weekends mostly involved staying local and making our apartment a bit cosier for winter.

Looking forward, our trip home to the UK for my brother’s wedding in July looms large on the horizon. Before then, though, there’ll be plenty more Stock Showdowns, Ask the analysts, and Bookworms coming your way. See you in June!

Get Morningstar insights in your inbox