Manager Focus - Robert B. Gillam

I recently read an interview with McKinley Capital Management founder, Robert B. Gillam. Very interesting guy and investment style. Mr. Gillam setup shop in Alaska of all places. Despite the remote location...he runs a heavy "quant" shop. His work on ranking of stocks based on performance and risk (OR Index) bears further study from yours truly.

What drew me to Mr. Gillam's interview was his research on stocks making new highs and new lows. Mr. Gillam found stocks making new highs on any given day to have a greater than 70% chance of hitting another new high in the next 90 days. And stocks making new lows to have a greater than 65% chance of making another new low in 90 days. Then goes into the how and why of his research. Great stuff!

Check out these articles for further information on Mr. Gillam...

Background on Robert Gillam and McKinley Capital Management.

U.S. Blinders Hinder Stock Pickers. This is a great article covering Mr. Gillam's expansion into international investing.

Here's an article from Mr. Gillam's son, Robert A. Gillam...

STUDY CHALLENGES CONVENTION: Growth, value style distinctions also important in international investing from Pensions & Investments.
This breakup between styles reminds me of an interview with DFA's founder, Rex Sinquefield. Mr. Sinquefield discussed how value stocks were riskier than growth stocks despite their similar volatility. Thus the reason for value stock's higher returns over the years.

Have a great week!

MT

Weekend Linkfest!

The Beta in Alpha's clothing? (pdf) Bridgewater Associates' detail how various hedge fund's are charging Alpha prices for Beta returns.

How to differentiate Alpha from Beta in those hedge funds? Check out AllAboutAlpha's post titled, Mommy, Where do alphas come from? AllAboutAlpha does a great job of summarizing Andrew Lo's paper, Where Do Alphas Come from?: A New Measure of the Value of Active Investment Management. Lo explains how to differentiate active returns from passive and more importantly what value the active returns add to the total returns of the portfolio. Cool stuff!

Very interesting draft, When Do Stop-Loss Rules Stop Losses?, by Kathryn M. Kaminski and Andrew W. Lo. They find stop-losses improve returns and reduce volatility compared to buy & hold. And stop-out periods were distributed uniformly over time versus only during small market crashes.

MOSERS discusses how to handle residual cash in a portfolio in the following newsletters, Rebalancing and Cash Securitization and Rebalancing II. I was shocked to discover how big of an impact residual cash had on my returns during my market studies. A cash drag indeed! Very important to get that cash, no matter how small, back into the market in order to generate further market returns.

Enjoy your week!

MT

Quote of the Week - Busy Bee

"I really believe that success is just getting up one more time than you fall. It doesn't come from one brilliant idea, but from a bunch of small decisions that accumulate over the years. And you shouldn't underestimate the amount of work that's involved, the amount of fear that's involved." -- Roxanne Quimby

I love unconventional success stories. And Inc.com shares a great one with Burt's Bees founder, Roxanne Quimby.

Enjoy Quimby's story? Here are a few more interviews with the busy bee...

After Burt's Bees, What? from Business Week

Interview with Burt's Bees founder, Roxanne Quimby from Hilary Magazine.

MT