Current Equities
Commentary
This was my current portfolio, as of May 25th, 2018. I have since concentrated my capital on fewer companies. Although, I enjoy building complex financial models - through the abilities I learned through Martin Shkreli, my undergraduate degree, and at Credit Suisse - yet, I now have moved to a more people-based strategy. I look for winners and losers in the market based on how I judge the character and power of their respective leaders. I find this strategy to be fulfilling, as I find meaning in investing in leaders that I admire. I formally held my investments with Questrade; however, I have since moved my capital to HSBC Invest Direct, as I lost trust in the former company. I have always traded on a margin and I enjoy taking both Long and Short positions. My largest winner to date, although I have closed the position, was a long position in Bristow Stow Group where I earned over 140% in a matter of months - not including gains due to leverage. I have now fully closed this position, and I thank Mackenzie Investments for the investment inspiration.
I advocate for shorting securities, as I believe it is wise to get to a near zero beta - granted a fully beta neutral portfolio may not be ideal considering the general upward trend in securities in the last century. More specifically, I believe it is the act of a prudent investor to try to profit as much from a bear market as one might try to do so from a bull market. As for a margin, I am confident that debt is the secret to ammassing wealth. This may be revealed from household mortgages to private equity mega funds.
On one side I see the markets as quite rational and treats equities in the same manner as debt and risk-free securities. One must, therefore, deploy portfolio strategies such a multi-factor model, like the Fama French Model, to find arbitrage portfolios across the risk-return matrix. Yet, I also believe that the equity markets are heavily driven by cash flows, and, therefore, by understanding individual companies well enough, one might be able to create value by doing the most research. This may accomplished through robust financial models. Going forward, I will likely continue to apply both of these methodologies, while I am also always open and looking for more ways to analyze this beautiful and complex chaos system.