Investment Philosophy

We have never been ones to identify with any single investment style or strategy. Our mandate is to capitalize on any opportunity that we uncover within capital markets, anywhere. It's about unearthing value (typically, and most valuably, that which has been shunned or overlooked by others for various reasons, which should be understood) and/or anticipating others' behaviours. In the end, we are looking to be compensated for acting on a variant view and/or astutely bearing risk. The better our grasp and conviction on a view and risk assessment, the better we'll expect to perform. We are partial to situations where we can be overly conservative- or even completely wrong- on a value/risk assessment, and still emerge profitable or unscathed. Investment performance is a function of how much one makes and loses. So, whenever any single opportunity or decision is being considered, it is approached with that simple framework of approximating both variables with as much accuracy as possible. That is where we expend our time and effort.

Our approach comprises two broad, unrelated strategies- discretionary and systematic- each of which comprises sub-strategies. For now, all of the content posted on this website will pertain to our discretionary process, encompassing idea generation and research.

Our discretionary process is better outlined here, and is broadly demonstrated in our write-ups, but we generally look for situations involving clear and deep mispricings, or ones where we can reasonably anticipate the behaviors of other market participants. More specifically, our objective is to find opportunities with fundamentals that are characterized by a degree of considerable certainty and an asymmetric payoff, and/or when we have conviction that the market has misjudged or over/under-reacted to a development, and/or when we believe that structural realities or catalysts are about to come into play. Markets are rife with cognitive biases and ones embedded in systems and mandates. In addition to biases, participants are often structurally or informationally limited. We aim to uncover such opportunities, and look to press every advantage we have to fill our portfolio with as many compelling, diligently researched and monitored opportunities as possible, while managing those positions dispassionately.

Furthermore, we are always open to changing our minds- or even reversing course- when situations change, including, and most importantly, when new (or old, but previously overlooked) information invalidates our thesis. This applies to individual positions and entire strategies.

Although many investments have long-term horizons, we take an active approach, with a clear thesis and/or target price; we know when and why we are in and out of a position. Many investors extricate long-term performance from that of the short-term, whereas we view them as inextricably linked, both by necessity and philosophy.

Talk of philosophies and strategies aside, again, the single, most important and defining measure of it all is performance, so we're always optimizing for that, rather than catering to our own bias of not wanting to be wrong. We hate losing money, and would discard years of research (and we have) if it does not pan-out in implementation. A dispassionate balance between investment analyst/strategist and trader/portfolio manager is crucial.