Global Equity: The Odyssey, the AI Trade, and Concentration Risk | EP 219

AI portfolio construction in global equity markets (memory semiconductors, mega IPOs, and how to manage concentration risk) is the focus of this conversation with Mawer’s global equity portfolio manager Paul Moroz. Drawing on Homer's Odyssey, he explains the discipline the team applies when navigating themes that are moving quickly: from trimming SK Hynix systematically as the position grew, to sizing up what a wave of large IPOs means for cost of capital, to the central trade-off between underexposure and overconcentration in the AI complex. He also puts numbers around the portfolio's AI positioning and explains how hyperscaler holdings act as a natural offset. The episode closes on humility as a process requirement, reflected in the portfolio's expansion to nearly 90 names with smaller, more incremental position sizing.

Key Takeaways

• Memory semiconductors, including SK Hynix, illustrate the discipline required around fast-moving themes. The team has sold back nearly as much as it invested in SK Hynix while the position has grown to over 5% of the portfolio — a deliberate trimming driven by ongoing valuation modeling, not a change in the thesis. The risk is not the price-to-earnings multiple; it is the cyclicality of earnings, and the question of how long the current upcycle runs.

• Odysseus' response to the Sirens when he ties himself to the mast and has his crew row with beeswax in their ears is a useful analogy for process. Decisions made in advance of the moment of seduction, grounded in a systematic valuation framework, are more reliable than decisions made in the heat of a rapid move.

• Large IPOs entering markets signal a more capital-intensive economic period and raise real questions about where the capital comes from. Companies already in the S&P 500 benefit from a structural cost-of-capital advantage over those outside it, and the team watches for what needs to be sold as large new issuers absorb liquidity. A period of multiple compression, while uncomfortable for near-term statements, improves long-term reinvestment returns.

• The Scylla-versus-Charybdis choice (the monster on one side, the whirlpool on the other) maps directly onto the AI portfolio construction problem. The team's AI hardware exposure sits at approximately 22.7% of the portfolio; a 50% drawdown in that sleeve would represent roughly an 11-12% hit to the overall portfolio. An offsetting 15.5% is held in hyperscalers (Meta, Microsoft, Amazon) whose capital expenditure is the revenue of the hardware side, producing a natural hedge that brings net directional AI exposure to around 7-8%.

• The team's response to the Cyclops story (Odysseus boasting after his victory, which brought years of suffering from Poseidon) is portfolio humility expressed through construction. The global equity portfolio now holds just under 90 names, with positions sized smaller and traded in smaller increments to reduce the cost of being wrong and to manage in a high-volatility environment.

• Some holdings that look nothing like AI businesses have begun moving with AI sentiment. The team treats these correlation shifts as arbitrage opportunities: when something is priced as an AI stock but carries different underlying risk, there may be a better entry or exit available elsewhere in the complex.

0:00 - Introduction: Homer's Odyssey and the AI Trade
1:39 - The Sirens: Memory Stocks, SK Hynix, and Valuation Discipline
7:54 - Managing a Position That Has Grown Beyond Its Cost Base
10:30 - Mega IPOs, Cost of Capital, and Index Inclusion Advantage
15:49 - Scylla vs. Charybdis: Choosing Your Risk in AI
17:58 - AI Portfolio Construction: Numbers, Offsets, and Net Exposure
23:11 - Correlation Creep: When Non-AI Stocks Start Acting Like AI
24:42 - The Cyclops Story: Humility, Diversification, and Process
26:53 - Closing: Managing Money Across Generations
27:15 - Outro and Subscribe

Host: Rob Campbell, CFA, Institutional Portfolio Manager
Guest: Paul Moroz, CFA, Global Equity Portfolio Manager

This episode is available for download anywhere you get your podcasts.

Founded in 1974, Mawer Investment Management Ltd. (pronounced "more") is a privately owned independent investment firm managing assets for institutional and individual investors. Mawer employs over 250 people in Canada, U.S., and Singapore. 

Visit us at: https://www.youtube.com/@MawerInvestment https://www.mawer.com https://www.linkedin.com/company/mawer-investment-management/ https://www.instagram.com/mawerinvestmentmanagement/