MACRO VIEW MDH Investment Management's selection process begins with a macro view of world trends: social, political, economic and technological events which will impact future investment markets. We look for changes in lifestyle, demographics, and technology that can help us identify industries or investments that are creating opportunities. And we look for government actions and economic trends that are affecting the strength of national markets. By combining a knowledge of which markets are expanding with an understanding of the most progressive industries or investments within those markets, we are better able to select those investments which have the greatest long-term potential.
EQUITY SELECTIONS We look for industries of two types. First, those whose expected good earnings performance indicate that they will have superior long-term market growth. Secondly, those which have had major setbacks and are entering a recovery period where over the next three years or more they will return to normal trade growth and therefore have excellent potential for large earnings increases.
Having selected industries, we then look for companies that we feel are leaders. We generally look for a rate at or above the industry rate. We attempt to find companies that are undervalued versus their peers, or valued lower than their growth rate would warrant. To further our understanding of individual companies we seek out information from suppliers, customers, and competitors, as well as industry analysts. We also look for superior management, superior cost controls, and new product capability. The companies we prefer are those who understand their place in the market and who either dominate that market already or are moving to do so.
We select specific buy and sell points in advance and decide how much of a particular stock to hold based on its illiquidity and existing portfolio mix. The sell point is based on a percentage of the purchase price or highest market value. For volatile stocks the decline we tolerate may be as much as 30 percent. For a low volatility stocks it may be only 10 percent. We rarely purchase all of our holding of a stock at one time, but average up, and watch the stock's movements closely once we hold a position. See our Selling Rationale...