What Our Clients Are Talking About Behind The Scenes

Introduction to Wall Street Whispers

Every week I do over twenty idea conference calls with institutional clients from all over the world.  They range from tactical traders to strategic long only portfolio managers.  I literally speak and interact with the best and the brightest that the money management profession has to offer, and it is one of the aspects of my job that I love the most. 

During these discussions, the clients are certainly interested in what my research is showing and what my views are on a host of different topics.  Importantly, however, I do not just present to my clients where they passively listen to my conclusions and best ideas.  The time spent is usually more of an active discussion and debate where investors are also sharing with me things they are thinking, worried about, what they own, and what they are thinking about buying and selling.  Sometimes clients agree with my views and at others there is significant pushback.  Because I have so much client engagement, the aggregation of the meetings can provide valuable information back to me about where the dominant thoughts and positioning of the institutional investing crowd are at that moment. 

I remember back when I was in graduate school and just a regular retail investor.  I would wonder what it would be like to get a glimpse into what the “pros” were doing and thinking.  Well, going forward, I intend to share on Tuesdays what the professional investors that I speak with are thinking and doing with their portfolios to give our FSI subscribers a peak behind the so-called institutional curtain to help our retail clients.  

I hope that you enjoy our new weekly note and would love to hear from you if you are finding it useful in your investment returns.  So, below is this week’s comment and within it you may see some terminology that might be unknown or confusing to you.  Over time, FSI will be creating a glossary of terms/vocabulary areas and some teaching sections, but for now they are still a work in progress. 

The market/sector volatility continued over the week as the S&P 500 having both fallen over 2% and then rising nearly 3% to near an all-time high.  The headline news continues to contribute to create high levels of uncertainty and worry, which has made the investing backdrop difficult even for the most seasoned professional.  When one does not have a disciplined process to depend on, an investor can become a flag during a windy day being impacted by the direction of the day’s gust.  At FSI, we use disciplined, objective, and data driven approaches to our research and idea generation to help our subscribers not let their emotions or the news story of the day lead to less-than-optimal decision making. 

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