INTERNATIONAL EQUITY

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS

Quantitative/Qualitative Combination. Our selection process combines the quantitative efforts of our proprietary ranking system with the fundamental efforts of our seasoned portfolio management and research team is applied to both country and security valuation.

Value+Catalyst Combination. We seek value with positive catalysts to signal improvement in a company’s prospects and change in investor expectations. Catalysts such as earnings and sales surprise along with earnings estimate revisions show us the ‘right time’ to purchase a value stock thereby helping us to avoid the "value trap" of buying a stock that stays ‘cheap’ and does not go up in price.

Stock Selection. Our proprietary ranking process, which ranks stocks within each country, highlights stocks that are trading at reasonable valuations but offer good growth prospects in the future. The portfolio guidelines that generally limit position size to 2% and industry exposure to two positions per industry per country also reduces the overall risk profile of the strategy.

Country Allocation. On a country basis, overweighting (underweighting) countries that are statistically cheap (expensive) on a current and ten year basis has proven successful. Our country guidelines further ensure that the portfolio is well diversified to mitigate undue country risk.

 

Mutual fund investing involves risk; loss of principal is possible.