We believe that successful investing requires a unique blend of ideas and attributes that are rarely held by the majority of investment managers. The following are seven beliefs that we maintain are critical to successfully managing an investment portfolio:
Belief #1: BE HONEST
In the book of Proverbs, Chapter 6, verses 16 - 19, King Solomon, one of the wisest men to ever live writes the following:
"These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to Him."
One of the six and two of the seven are being dishonest so we figure it best, above all else, is to just tell the truth. It is not always easy in our business but we strive to do it. Over the course of our firm's history, we have enjoyed periods of fantastic performance yet we have also encountered spells of prolonged losses. In order to prevent such spells, we developed a systematic trading system which we fully implemented in May of 2019. We believe this system will allow us to generate positive returns for our clients in nearly all market environments.
Belief #2: BE DIFFERENT
All great investors have the capacity to invest contrary to popular sentiment. The incomparable Jim Rogers writes in his best-selling book, Hot Commodities, "Nearly every time I strayed from the heard, I've made alot of money". And Warren Buffett writes in his autobiography, The Essential Buffett, "If you join the crowd, you have a much higher risk of being trampled."
Nearly every firm touts themselves as "different" but virtually they are pretty much the same. We are, however, a significant deviation from the norm providing absolute return strategies in separate accounts to all investors.
Belief #3: BE PRUDENT
Every discretionary position we build for our clients comes with a stop-loss price. Some call this risk management but we have come to know it as loss management. Every investor who has ever lived knows losses are inevitable. It is not avoiding losses that count; it is minimizing them when they take place.
Belief #4: ABSOLUTE RETURNS PROMOTE WEALTH PRESERVATION
The most prominent sign in my high school basketball locker room said, "Offense Wins Games - Defense Wins Championships!" As an investment manager, I believe this truism holds for investing just as well as it does in sports.
Absolute Return investment strategies seek to deliver positive returns regardless of market direction. Our primary objective is to help investors preserve wealth with a secondary objective of growing their wealth.
Belief #5 : TECHNICAL ANALYSIS WORKS
Dr. Ken McFarland famously said, "It’s impossible to predict the behavior of a single individual; however, it is easy to predict the behavior of a group of individuals." We share his sentiment when it comes to capital markets. It is impossible to determine how an individual investor will behave but there certainly is repeatable patterns across large groups of investors. Investors collectively behave in fairly predictable ways. And there are quantifiable methods to measure historical market behavior which can be useful in determining the probabilities of future market trends. We have developed our own proprietary tools that measure investor groupthink which allows us to generate positive returns in nearly all market climates.