I often go back and re-read things that have shaped my perspective on managing portfolios. In my 20s (in the 1990s) I was fortunate to have a friend and mentor named Clay Allen who taught me volumes on the art of portfolio management.
Read MoreFirst thing first, Keurig Green Mountain (ticker:GMCR) is not a Knowledge Leader, which means as an investment team we don’t spend a lot of time delving into the intricate details of the stock.
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Similar to a basketball player with a ”hot hand”, stocks go on statistical runs. And similar to a player with a ”cold streak”, stocks have slumps. Over time, with a proper perspective, it is easy to measure the extent to which these runs and slumps play out in the market and invest accordingly.
Read MoreThe extremely well greased PR machine promoting passively managed index funds as the best thing since sliced bread has gone to great effort to convince the investing public that money cannot be made through active strategies.
Read MoreRegular readers are aware of the place that point-and-figure technical analysis plays in our investment process (for more details on the methodology, including information on our proprietary modifications to the discipline, see here).
Read MoreEarlier today we had a client ask us to verify a statistic they came across showing that the few largest companies in the world were responsible for the vast majority of the total return of the stock market over the last year.
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As ETFs control a larger number of assets under management, it is no surprise that the options available to investors are getting ever more exotic. One of the early examples (and thus we actually have history available) of exotic ETFs are leveraged ETFs.
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Last week, we went into all of the details of our proprietary point-and-figure methodology (see here).
Read MoreFamiliar readers are aware that we use point-and-figure methodology as a technical complement to our extensive fundamental analysis. For a brief discussion of how it works, you may watch a video blog on the subject here. For more details, read on.
Read MoreLet’s say you have portfolio that invests in four asset classes: stocks, bonds, cash, and alternatives. The goal of the portfolio is simply to outperform the broad, global equity market (MSCI All Country World Index) over a multiple year time frame.
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The story of 2014, and so far in 2015, is that yields have continued to fall contrary to most economists’ expectations. This matters to equity investors because the appropriate asset allocation in a falling yield environment is much different than the best allocation in a rising yield environment.
Read MoreAn unconventional way of looking at valuations is to place companies into different ”buckets” based on their absolutely valuation level.
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