Mark Slater, co-founder of Slater Investments, is one of the up and coming new generation of UK fund managers. His Slater Growth fund currently ranks as the best performing UK equity unit trust over one, three and five years, thanks mainly to a strong performance over the last two years, during which he has added further quantitative screening criteria to his original stockpicking methods. In this 40-minute audio interview, we discuss his methods, favourite stock picks and current cautious view on the market. (This item is for subscribers only).
Author: Jonathan Davis
Author, columnist and investment professional.
Time to Study Cycle Turning Points
Who said: “Investment results largely depend on how one behaves near the top and near the bottom” [of the market cycle]? The answer is Keynes, whose remark is quoted in a collection of some of his most famous comments about investment in the latest issue of the Journal of Portfolio Management. In my experience, that statement is broadly true, as indeed anyone who cares to think through the implications and study the evidence has to concede.
Anything But Gilts
Imagine for a moment that you were sitting in the aisle of St Paul’s Cathedral at the royal wedding of 1981, waiting for the mismatched bridal couple to arrive and idly speculating about the best way to save up for a wedding present for their first-born, a generation hence. The odds are that you would not have given much thought to British Government stock, or gilts, as the investment of choice. (This article was written for The Spectator, issue of 21 May 2011).
The Judgement of Warren Buffett
The most damaging aspect of the Warren Buffett-David Sokol sharedealing episode to my mind is not the issue of who said what to whom and when, or even whether Mr Sokol’s behaviour was illegal – the latter’s actions surely fail in the court of good judgement, regardless of the precise legalities of the situation. The more worrying aspect for any long-standing Buffett admirer is the evidence that his latest big idea was sourced from a list of potential targets supplied, in the first instance, by a corporate financier at Citigroup, from whom Mr Sokol originally got his idea.
The Uncompromising Jeremy Grantham
We are barely ten seconds into our interview when Jeremy Grantham, onetime bedpan salesman from Doncaster, now a hugely successful money manager in the United States, is off on a favourite tack – mixing it with his competitors in the investment world. In this case what has drawn his ire are some reported comments from a well-known American fund manager whose views I have unwisely chosen to allude to in a recent newspaper column.
This Time He’s Playing for Keeps
Terry Smith’s office is high up on the 37th floor of Tower 42, formerly the NatWest Tower, from where there is a floor to ceiling view over Docklands and out toward Essex, a neck of the woods with which he seems to be associated in the popular mind. The public image of this high profile City figure is that of a pugnacious bruiser, someone with attitude who has made good in the money markets through a series of ballsy deals, and who likes nothing better than a good verbal scrap.
Jonathan Davis 