Over the last decade we have witnessed the rise (and fall) of many different investment concepts, as investment firms and academics search for a magic formula that can generate consistent returns, whilst crucially avoiding the hard work that is in reality required to generate those returns. Sadly most realize quickly that there is no...
A common question we receive is: “Are you at GCI growth investors or value investors?” Prospective clients might look at our portfolio and see holdings such as Microsoft and Mastercard, which have historically traded at price-to-earnings multiples in excess of 35x, alongside holdings such as First American Financial and UPS, which have historically traded at...
So far, the year 2020 has been characterized by volatile swings in share prices as the market comes to terms with the uncertainty surrounding Covid-19, social unrest, and the continuing US/ China trade war. Since its peak in mid-February, the S&P 500 has crashed by 35% and subsequently rallied by almost 50%. Throughout these huge...
About a month ago, it became apparent that in order to slow the spread of Covid-19 – buying the necessary time to scale testing and treatment capabilities – the entire global economy would need to be put on pause. The unintended consequences of such a dramatic policy were unknowable, but it was pretty clear...
Since our last update a week ago, which may seem like an eternity now, the market has dropped another 6% - putting the YTD performance of the S&P 500 down roughly 30% (though it’s up substantially at the time of writing today). To put this all into context, the collapse in equity markets now...
For those of you who aren’t keeping score, the most recent daily returns of the stock market have been: -9%, 5%, -5%, -10%, 9%, and -12%. That -12%, which occurred yesterday, also happened to be the single worst day in US stock market history since October 19, 1987 (a title previously held by last...
You’ll excuse us if these market updates are getting a bit out of hand (we naturally prefer to write about things that play out over years, not months) but these past few weeks have given us a front-row seat to the market’s panic-driven, short-term irrationality – a trait that investors (especially passive investors) might...
So far this year we have seen a 10% sell-off in equity markets. We should open by saying this is no cause for concern. You will recall that we noted in our last few letters that statistically speaking, we have been due for a 14% peak to trough sell-off for a while now. Many...
This short piece is a continuation of our previous article challenging the obvious and critical flaws of the ‘efficient market hypothesis’- a theory which states that stock prices reflect all known information, and so always trade at their fair value. If true, that would make it impossible for active managers, such as us, to...
In our most recent quarterly update, we talked about the importance of long-term thinking in a world that is increasingly dominated by short-term news flow. Not to belabor the point, but this concept is so fundamentally important to what we do here at Globescan that we felt it deserved its own article. When we really...
