Core Investment Strategies
Having a solid investment strategy has been critical to our firm's success over the decades. We maintain an overall bottoms-up approach, which means we analyze individual companies, their financial statements, growth prospects and industry trends. The four key strategies below adhere to our overall approach.
Downside Risk Management
Selecting the appropriate investments for your portfolio and knowing when to sell them are part of what we do to manage downside risk. Selling an investment at the wrong moment can be the difference between making money and losing it. We have an in-depth understanding of every company we invest in, which helps us stay invested even during downturns.
Asset Allocation
We always consider current market conditions. When the market appears overvalued, we tend to keep more cash available, so in the event of a market correction, we have adequate resources to take advantage of undervalued equities. We typically allocate 15-35% fixed income, 55-75% equities, and 5-20% in cash.
Fundamental Investing
Our approach emphasizes the current level and earnings of an equity. Many of our equity selections come from the bottom 450 market capitalization stocks as the largest 50 tend to be too expensive for our discipline. However, we are still able to find value in even the very largest companies.
Sell Strategy
Our decision to sell a position generally arises when the price of the security rises faster than the sales and earnings of the company, such that the ratios we look at place the stock above what we consider fair value. At this point, if we believe the stock has reached full valuation, we may choose to sell it.