Investment Management

We started actively investing our own money in 1985. Beginning in 1989 we expanded our efforts to include a more active style focusing on technology stocks and options. In 1995 we were able to deeply integrate emerging technology research we were doing at SoundView Technology Group with active investment management.

From 2004 to 2007 we only managed our investments on a part-time basis while forming the basis of Research 2.0 and completing a variety of advisory assignments. Beginning in 2008 we returned to an active role integrated with our emerging technology research.

Shortly we will be posting regular quarterly updates of our performance and some details regarding our portfolio.

Our basic approach is fundamental and can be summarized as follows:

  • Technology Themes : We remain focused on developments in information technology but note that the impact is speading to many industries today including energy and healthcare. We are following technology into these other vertical industries to find even more opportunties. These themes result in long-term investable trends that create winners (like Google) and losers (like newspapers) to name an obvious one. This approach also helps focus investment capital on where the major shifts are occurring and avoid distractions and dilution of research efforts.

  • Business Quality : It takes a strong company to translate industry opportunity into revenue growth and high returns on investment capital. So our process includes evaluation of product quality and development, competitive position, busienss model, management ability, company efficiency and so forth. In technology-driven scenarios we find that product cycles can be as important as brand new innovations.

  • Valuation: Valuation gets plenty of attention but it's mostly lip service or the use of generally misleading financial ratios. Correct valuation techniques are quite simple to apply and use but are often absent from mainstream stock analysis. For every investment we employ our long-term company valuation model which generates a reasonable value for what the company is worth looking out five or six years. This figure, compared to current enterprise value is the key factor in making a final investment decision.

Clearly this is basically a fundamental approach. We are not market neutral although we do a number of things to balance risk. These include the use of options, having one or two short positions and changing exposure overall or to particular names based on our conviction level.

This arrangement allows our clients to fully leverage our work and scale up or down it to fit their needs in an on-demand fashion. We think the small fixed fee with variable project costs is just the right fit for our target client base.

To join please contact us and we will set you up immediately. Nearly all payment options are available including hard and soft-dollar, quarterly or annual, purchase order, invoice and payment by check or wire, PayPal, and credit cards.