James Gruber: Peter, first up, congratulations on a great career.

Peter Warnes: Well, thanks, James. You've got to be careful about superlatives and adjectives. It's been long. I don't know if it's been great.

Gruber: You deserve these superlatives.

Warnes: But still, it's been an interesting journey. Rising 78, I thought, it's time to put the cue in the rack and think about a bit more relaxation with my wife and our Border Collie and see what happens from there. But I won't be queuing up for the dementia award.

Gruber: Let's talk about your career in finance. It began 61 years ago, 1963. Give us a taste of how the career unfolded.

Warnes: Well, I finished 5th year in 1962 and I was 16, two and matriculated, so couldn't go to university – but too young to go to university. And so, my dad said, just after Christmas of 1962, so January '63, go and get a job. And I said, okay, I'm going to get a job. First job, a junior at the Bank of New South Wales, Surry Hills branch, in the corner of Cleveland and Crown Street, opening doors, looking stamps, saying hello to people. And it started from there. And then a university education when I was 18 commenced. In fact, I was one of the first that they sponsored or paid to go to university. You got refunded the fees, but only if you passed.

Gruber: So how long did you spend there?

Warnes: Well, in the bank, in investment research until 1975. I took an opportunity and went stock broking with Hattersley & Maxwell. And we were kind of doing M&A on the way of doing and also doing research, and that was a fascinating time. One of the highlights of that was I did – T&T were in a bit of trouble with the railroad operations coming out of Nigeria into New York and the stock price was tumbling. And we were approached by one of our big institutional clients to say, what's going on? And they said, well, (Wanzie) knows (Ross Cribb), or I don't, you see what we can find out. And so, Ross said to me, well, Peter, is your passport in order? And I said, yes. And he said, right, well, in a week's time, you're on a plane. And so, I left here and went from here to Easter Island, refueled at Land Chili, into San Diego, into Buenos Aires. They had a big operation in Brazil, spent four or five days in Brazil and up to New York and then over to London and looked at their operations in the U.K. and back. And I'm proud of the fact that I wrote a 125-page report and was phoning in as I went, but (by gee) we bought a lot of stock for our clients. And then ultimately down the track, they were taken out. But we did pretty well, and they did pretty well. So that was probably one of the highlights of my research career.

Gruber: You were in broking till the early 80s. Where to from there?

Warnes: I'd known Ian Huntley since he bought Your Money Weekly from (Jules Sinetti) in 1974 for a dollar. So, we were buddies from way back, and I contributed to Your Money Weekly a long, long time ago. Then he said to me in early 90s, he said, (Wanzie), you come full time. And so, I did. And then he merged with Andrew Bird's Aspect Financial and then Morningstar to Aspect Huntley over in 2006.

Gruber: Okay. Over that time, I'm interested to hear what market event stands out for you.

Warnes: Well, it would be hard to go past what happened in October 1987. I mean, strangely enough, it was school holidays, and we had my youngest son, Ben had just been born in 1986 and we were up at Noosa, and I got a call from the boss down here and said, (Wanzie), what's going, what's happening? I said, you know what's happening. He said, well, you're coming back. I said, well, what can I do? So, I stayed there for another few days and then we came back. But that's the biggest single event in terms of markets. When the biggest stock market in the world crunches 20% in a day, it does have an impact. Not so much the 2000, the dotcom. But 2007, I was getting very, very nervous about what was happening, and it was only a matter of time before the GFC was going to happen.

Gruber: What are the biggest lessons you've learnt over your career?

Warnes: Well, I think in terms of investing, one, you've got to have a commitment and a conviction. Back your judgment after you've done your research, do a lot of reading, start young. I mean, back in our day or my day, there was no superannuation and what have you. I didn't start as young as I should have. Great companies like Westfield were there and they were just at crazy prices in terms of how low they were and what that company became. And there was several of those around. Had you been in compulsory superannuation, you would have been along for the ride. So, you've got to be along for the ride. I think that you've got to be committed, always be in the market to some extent. And if what you've thought and after your research, if that's growing and doing what you thought it would do, then stay with it. If the stock is not performing the way you thought it was, go back and then question yourself, why, why, what am I missing? What's the market doing? Why is it doing what I didn't think it would do? And I'm kind of a fan of averaging in. I don't mind averaging in. Averaging down is dangerous because you are emotionally involved. You think you've made a mistake, and you probably have, but you can't let go.

Gruber: Okay. What's on the agenda now? Is it a beach and being lazy?

Warnes: There's going to be more time to have with my wife and our Border – Border Collie – the kids are the border – so, grandkids and what have you. We've got two that I – one is 4 shortly and the other one will be 2 shortly, and some more time with them, obviously, and what have you. But just spending a bit more time with family and just getting out and doing what you wanted to do for a little while. A little bit more fishing, I suspect, and certainly, might have a game of golf every week, but I will still be active. I'll still be writing. I'll still do something every week. I am too disciplined not to. I still got my one page per day diaries going back 20 years, and I fill that page every day. And I'll still do that. And I'll write something, and I'll probably post it on LinkedIn on a very regular basis. But it will be in my time. And as I said, I won't be giving the dementia creature a chance to get into my head.

Gruber: Fair enough. Well, I look forward to still some stock tips, I'd love those. But congratulations again, and thanks for being here.

Warnes: Yeah. Well, James, it has been a long journey and I'd like to thank all our subscribers and supporters for their support and feedback they've given me, whether positive or otherwise. It's been a long and enjoyable road. And I wish them good health and successful investing.