What is ISN?

Our industry is notorious for chasing the next great invention and professing that a great revelation has just been discovered. There have been many “sure winners” such as: Nifty Fifty, Portfolio Insurance, Long Term Capital, dot com, New Economy, Securitization, Japan-Way, Private Equity, Hedge Funds, and on and on. What is interesting is that this type of information and process is well entrenched in both institutional and retail investment markets.

This site is different. It is not providing any miracles, no wonder solutions and no next great discovery.  The Investment Strategy Network (ISN) web product is an investment tool designed to assist in the decision-making process of both private and institutional investors. It is designed to assist you in making or evaluating investment decisions on all levels from asset allocation to individual stock selection. Notice how the word assist is being used. We are not providing a shortcut or the final answer. We provide information and analysis that assists you in making an informed decision using proven and reliable analysis. Information that has been used for decades by the people providing the information. And, it is currently being used by the same people today for large and small portfolios, institutional and private investors. It is a blend of examining historical data, economic influence, market trends, statistical relationships and valuations. It is all based on answering several important questions. What is a fair value for the asset? What is important in determining the valuation? What influences the valuation?

On this site, you will see what many have called “over the shoulder”. We have opened the door so that investors can see what we use on a daily basis to make decisions regarding economic projections and influence, market projections and valuations, sector and industry valuations, individual stock valuations, model asset allocations based on various investment objectives, stock models, ratings for global stocks in valuation, economic influence, investment characteristics and many important market influencing factors. You can see recommended asset allocations, stock selections, stock ratings, economic conditions and forecasts, market conditions, views and forecasts, and model portfolios. Additionally, when changes and new information is available we post and send out this information daily. We use the site ourselves.

We are not a news service, there are plenty of those around from free to astronomically expensive and we are not sure price is correlated with real value. We are not an “all-knowing” impersonal robot where statistical algorithms are used to inform you of what worked yesterday. (Don’t we all wish we could buy stocks at yesterday’s prices?) We are portfolio managers that have managed portfolios for real people, in real markets around the world for decades, using fundamental and statistical, active and passive processes together where appropriate, and have developed tools that have withstood the test of time.

If you would like to look over our shoulder as we manage money in the real world please join us by subscribing to ISN. Just keep in mind that we are managing money for specific objectives and use these tools to accomplish that task. YOU must decide what information is important to YOU and how it can assist YOU in making decisions. We cannot make those decisions for you, we are here to assist by providing knowledge tools.