Philosophy

Our investing framework is built on a few key beliefs about how the financial markets work.

Finding unappreciated value is at the core of what we do.

Not losing money is the first step to preserving and growing your wealth.

We believe it’s much easier to achieve your financial goals if you’re not spending long periods trying to recover from losses. We never let fear of not keeping up with the market in every environment override our first priority – seeking to protect our clients’ capital.

The market is not always efficient.

Popular academic thinking posits that financial markets are generally fairly priced, because collectively, investors behave rationally. We realize that investors are human, and humans don’t always act rationally.  A key part of our job is to find parts of the market where people are acting irrationally and try to take advantage of mispriced opportunities.

Only buy companies when they’re on sale.

We believe every company has a fair value that a potential owner should be willing to pay for the business. A great business can still be a bad investment if you pay too much for it.  Where we feel we differ from many value investors is in our extreme commitment to valuing companies conservatively and refusing to buy them unless we think they are significantly undervalued.

You don’t have to outperform all the time to succeed in the long run.

Financial markets work in cycles, and no style of investing is in favor all the time. Patience is a rare commodity in the investment advisory business, but we practice it tirelessly.  The potential benefits of our long-term, risk-focused approach become clear in down markets, where we aim to protect your money from large losses.