Losing faith in the NZX and I don't think it's just cyclical

[entrep]

I think I might be done. Not entirely, but the conviction is gone.

Looking back at my NZX positions over the years, the picture is grim. KMD, Spark, Sky TV, Steel and Tube, Sky City, WHS, FBU. All names I would have called solid Kiwi businesses. All have cost me money. Some I sold, some I'm still holding and watching the chart bleed.

What bothers me most is not the losses themselves. It's the growing sense that what we are watching here is structural rather than cyclical.

The drivers seem clear enough. Almost no institutional capital is flowing into NZ small and mid caps. Overseas allocators have effectively zero interest in this market. Local wealth that would once have rotated through the NZX is going offshore, into ETFs, crypto, US tech, anywhere with a real growth story. Meanwhile the rest of the world is funnelling everything into US mega caps and AI infrastructure.

And then there are the cap raises. Dilutive raise after dilutive raise, punishing the loyal holders who provided the capital in the first place. The board structures, the strategy resets, all of it points to companies playing defence rather than building.

I get that markets are cyclical. But this feels different. The NZX feels like a backwater the world has stopped caring about, and the companies listed here mostly seem to be defending small patches of turf rather than growing into anything.

I'm not arguing the NZX is going to zero. I'm arguing the case for retail capital staying here is getting weaker, and the opportunity cost is now too large to ignore.

Curious whether anyone else is feeling this, or whether I've just had a bad run and am rationalising it. Open to being told I'm wrong.

[Scooter]

 KMD, Spark, Sky TV, Steel and Tube, Sky City, WHS, FBU.

That's a grim list of names right there.  All ones where you could of made money if you had brought and sold at the right time.   Fletcher building is one I would never put money into.  These guys know how to destroy value.  I've owned skytv and whs but sold those at the peaks. You should look into other company's like tower, Turners, HLG,  powercompanys and one that not everyone likes seeka. There are still value company's out there. Great help on this forum too. Basil got me into MFB only 2 weeks ago and that's certainly surprised.    Thanks Basil 😁

[Plata]

I think recently the NZX has been/is a good place for property and utilities, everything else not so much. Check the yields (FCF or dividend) and compare to overseas equivalents and you'll be hard pressed to find higher. I wouldn't trust many NZ management teams to run businesses in sunset industries or industries without geographic moats, and I think almost every cap raise ive seen in the last 6 years was negative for retail holders.