September 9, 2015

The following principles guide how we invest our clients’ (and our own) assets.

We concentrate in our best ideas. We believe common sense requires that you invest in your best investment ideas. Although this approach generally results in investment performance that is out-of-step with the broad market, we believe it should result in superior investment performance over longer periods of time.

We focus on high-quality companies. We focus our investments in companies that meet our high-quality criteria. These companies have clearly identifiable competitive advantages, revolutionary products or services and defined business strategies; attractive financial characteristics including high levels of profitability, low debt, and strong revenue flow; and competent management.

Our strategy is long-term. Many investors are unduly influenced by short-term events and make investment decisions during times of heavy fear and greed. I cannot stress having a solid investment strategy enough during tough times. Everyone wants to buy and hold companies forever, but reality does not always allow this investor dream scenario. We use a focused approach to our growth strategy and utilize stop-loss orders when significantly abnormal behavior occurs in the individual holding. We follow the market trends and make decisions for the best of the clients’ (and our own) assets. We do not “sit on our hands” and remain passive.

We never change from our focused strategy. We have found that the most crucial piece of advice we can offer and practice is to stick to one strategy. The stock market is a clever animal. Not every year will be an “up” year, but when our growth indicators go positive and the trends are clear, we know exactly what to do. If we were to jump around from stocks to bonds to leveraged ETFs, we’d lose our focused approach to finding the “needles in the haystack”. Many investors lose their entire life savings trying to chase different strategies, but the hard truth is you just have to find one that fits your personality and stick with it through the good and bad. Patience will reward the rational investor.

We eat our own cooking. We have our entire investment accounts invested alongside our clients. Our financial goals are clearly aligned with those of our clients. Don’t invest with someone who doesn’t have their skin in the game.