The changing landscape of contrarian investing

Patience required

People often hear value investing and assume it is just an investment with a low price-to-earnings ratio, or owning the shares of a proven business in perfectly cyclical industries that do not have much growth.

However, this need to pigeonhole investment approaches into 'growth' versus 'value' is ignoring some important nuances. Every investor has different idiosyncrasies that they apply to investment portfolios, and these tend to be based on how they feel about and define risk. For us it has always been about avoiding losing money. In other words, investing in a way that would avoid the permanent loss of capital. While the goal of this investing style still relies on achieving a certain return over time, it aims to make the journey ‘less bumpy' for investors and fund managers. However, t...