News & Media

We have contended for some time that clients are best served owning small cap investments equally proportionate to traditional large cap investments. Investors, on the other hand, tend to perceive small cap investing as a volatile group, based on the actions of both a poorly constructed index and a group of poorly designed products. This […]

What investment style will be best suited to markets where returns are limited? This month we suggest that business culture and it’s ability to strengthen intellectual resources plays just as important a role in the sustainability of a client’s risk-adjusted return. “The strongest assumption behind the law [of active management] is that the manager will […]

This months comment is a continuation of our series on future equity returns. There have been a number of articles published recently suggesting active management cannot outperform passive index returns as the “skew” – a handful of stocks which drive rising markets (think Amazon recently) – will always bias performance to the market. We contend […]

This month our comment looks toward the next couple of decades, contending that current market returns combined with a reversal to positive correlation may result in investment returns that don’t meet an investor’s future liability needs. At the very least, the fascination with index benchmarks will need re-thinking. “For new models of progress to arise, […]

Made famous by Benjamin Graham back in the 1930s (who postulated that one’s loss would be greater buying a low quality business at a price that seems good value, than a high quality company at an excessively high price) and expounded upon by management consultants like Tom Peters (“In Search of Excellence”) and Michael Porter […]

“Since others may be smart, well‐informed and highly computerized, you must find an edge they don’t have. You must think of something they haven’t thought of, see things they miss, or bring insight they don’t possess. You have to react differently and behave differently.” – Howard Marks It has been a year of escalating risk. […]

As we noted in our last commentary, the intrinsic value of any investment rests on the free cash flow the business can generate over its remaining life, discounted back to present value at an appropriate rate. Obviously, one cannot actually know the precise timing and magnitude of cash flows even for the next few years let […]

Over our past few monthly commentaries, we’ve discussed investments using Game of Thrones metaphors: castles (the company), moats (competitive advantage), and knights (strong management). This is our third and final piece – determining whether the investment is worthy of client capital. “It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a […]

In our commentary last month, we introduced the concept of moats and knights – companies with defendable, competitive moats and the “knights” whose sole purpose was to widen them. This month, we’ll further discuss these defenders of the realm; how to identify them and how to ensure quality and integrity is more important to them […]

With the highly acclaimed television series “Game of Thrones” beginning their seventh season in July, we are reminded of the above lesser-known Buffett quote. While there are plenty of investment firms suggesting investment in “moats”, there has been little explanation on how a company establishes a moat or, more importantly, defends one. Perhaps there are […]

It’s hard to fathom that Y2K was seventeen years ago. Remember the widespread fear that technology would collapse around us in the belief that everything that computers touched would be engaged in a catastrophic breakdown as the date changed from 1999 to 2000? Of course, with the exception of some minor software glitches the millennial […]

The new issue of Research magazine is now available and its theme is evidence-based investing. The issue included a great article from Bob Seawright (CIO of a San Diego advisory firm). We can’t fit the entire article here and recommend you take a look at the magazine in its entirety. “I realized technical analysis didn’t […]