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Country Risk

When managing a global portfolio it’s important to have a handle on the risks inherent in the places we’re investing our funds. The approach most investors take is similar to the approach with which they assess individual stocks: Do I recognize the name and how does it make me feel? This really isn’t adequate, especially […]

Investing in the Misinformation Age

If the last half-century was the Information Age – a time of rapid progress in terms of access to information – I think it’s fair to say that we’ve gone beyond that and crossed firmly into the Misinformation Age. COVID and the US Elections have demonstrated how easy it is to deliberately spread extremely polarizing […]

Responsible Investing Hypocrisy

Socially responsible investing (SRI) continues to gather momentum in the investment industry, and is becoming increasingly popular amongst private investors. The idea is that investors allocate their capital to socially responsible businesses. There is some subjectivity as to what constitutes social responsibility, though ESG scoring (environmental, social, governance) is one widely accepted approach. Consideration can […]

Difficult Investments

NetEnt and Evolution Gaming have been two of our most successful investments to date. Both are Swedish companies operating in the online gaming industry (i.e. casino/betting systems). Since we acquired them through 2018/19, they have returned 120% and 370% respectively. As of March however, the performance of these two stocks couldn’t have been more divergent. […]

Red Flags Analysis: Wirecard, Alibaba

At Bellwood, we follow a quantitative process that ignores popular narratives and makes decisions based on underlying fundamentals like profitability, financial strength and valuation. One of the things that differentiates us from other quants-oriented asset managers is that we subject our portfolios to a more qualitative ‘red flags analysis’ before implementation. So the numbers always […]

Keep Doing the Basics Well

What a quarter it has been. COVID-19 has abruptly reminded us of the many frailties in our global society. The world seems almost paralyzed by the shock. As bad as the reaction in financial markets has been, it pales in comparison to the magnitude of the real economic pain this virus is causing across the […]

When patience doesn’t pay

Last quarter we wrote about active share and how our portfolios are very different from the index. The strength (both relative and absolute) that we saw in September continued through the end of the year, as our portfolios rose 13.1% in aggregate during the last quarter, bringing our total net USD return for 2019 to […]

Investment Case: Apple

We sold out of our position in Apple in the 4th quarter of 2019. We bought most of our shares in 2016 between $90 and $120 for a total return of roughly 140% in just over 3 years. While Apple has been a phenomenal investment for us, and it remains an excellent business by our […]

Dare to be Different

Investment managers are generally split into two categories: Active and passive. Active managers aim to outperform a certain benchmark index by being different from it. Passive investors seek to replicate an index. Both have their proponents and their detractors. Recently there has been a strong trend towards passive investment following a number of studies which […]