Checkmark Investing™

We call our investment philosophy Checkmark Investing™. The firm’s founders distilled this discipline from first-hand observations of the best and worst practices of the money management industry in North America. It is a strong, value-oriented strategy that constructs diversified portfolios of companies screened for attractive long-term attributes and financial strength.

We consider price an extremely important criterion for maximizing returns and reducing risk. Consequently, we usually purchase securities after price declines. Our investment approach is markedly different from most others in four aspects:

  1. We tend to buy stocks of companies with strong fundamentals whose prices are down.
  2. We have clearly focused portfolios of twenty stocks, each different from the other to maximize the diversification benefit and to control the differentiation of the portfolio.
  3. Our portfolios do not track index weightings, since this practice promotes concentration in hot stocks and sectors, and tends to result in buying high and selling low.
  4. We look to longer time horizons.

“We tend to buy stocks of companies with strong fundamentals whose prices are down . . . Some people think a three to four year investment horizon is too long, but we think that is how long it may take for solid investment opportunities to be rewarded by the market.”

Team at Heathbridge

Our Process

1: Identify good companies

Our research screens for companies with attractive operating attributes and strong financial positions.

2: Monitor companies’ long-term performance

We observe our target companies for long periods of time, looking for downdrafts in stock price which present buying opportunities. We believe good companies must be bought at good prices, a process that many find hard to execute in times of market turmoil.

3: Look for pricing opportunities

A company’s share price may decline further after our purchase. However, when we are correct about its long-term attributes, it’s share price will eventually revert to an upward trend. This pattern of a downleg followed by a sustained uptrend forms a pattern resembling a checkmark.

4: Maintain diversity

We expect that a diversified portfolio of sound investments bought at careful prices will provide strong returns and be resilient in downdrafts.

5: Harvest profits

We trim or sell successful investments at predetermined prices to harvest profits and control our weightings in individual holdings.