There a many things that we, as investment professionals, cannot control: 

• We cannot make Russia behave-- although we wish we could.
• We cannot make the economy stronger-- although it seems to be doing that by itself. 
• We cannot control the rate at which the central banks increase interest rates-- althought the decisions they make will affect all capital markets profoundly.

So what can we do-- and what matters about what we do?

Our job is to find good companies and good fund managers in which to invest our clients' assets. We do this by:

• Constantly researching into new names.
• Constantly monitoring the names we already own.
• Constantly reading the financial press to understand what is going on in the market in order to find new themes and new ideas.

Warren Buffett says he spends most of his time sitting in a chair reading. It seems to have worked out pretty well as a strategy. We are also voracious consumers of information, and-- for the most part-- it has worked out pretty well for our clients too.

One way of knowing if we are doing our job well, is to look at the performance of the companies in our portfolios. We should surely not be looking only at the performance of the stock prices, which, over the short term, have an element of randomness and volatility caused by any number of things.

What matters-- and what we should be looking at-- is the actual revenue and earnings of each company and the prospects for increased revenues going forward. We believe-- and history has shown-- that companies that grow their earnings increase in value and, that over time, that value shows up in the stock price.

The essence of our job?

• Building a diversified portfolio of leading companies.
• Paying attention on a day-by-day basis to the progress of each one.
• Making changes as required.

That is what matters.

"Investor returns are primarily derived by what you do in down markets-- NOT up markets"

-- Greg Frost