At the age of 6, I knew I wanted to be in Finance after seeing interested earned on my bank statement my father funded for me at his work’s credit union.  I received an accounting education and became a CPA, but always worked in non-accounting finance roles. 

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A couple interesting side-notes about my career is that I was positioned front and center during the financial collapse in 2008.  As a CDO financial modeling expert, I worked for JPMorgan serving as both a client-relationship manager and model producer for Bear Stearns.  I also consulted with Merrill Lynch to produce a complex financial reporting model that would support a third-party, purchase-finance arrangement allowing ML to offload over $28b of ABS CDOs, thereby allowing government approval for Bank of America to acquire ML.  

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I gravitated toward companies with easy to understand financial statements and find small and micro-cap stocks with less coverage with a focus on value much more interesting. To me, widely held large-cap stocks are crowded with opinions and sometimes “group thinkers”.  “Cigar butt” companies, as early Warren Buffett strategy was inclined to describe companies with tangible asset value for a cheap price, fit into my investment philosophy.  I look for stocks in which investors were literally throwing their shares away on the open market at prices at or below their “margin of safety”. 

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I employ a list of over 200 criteria when honing-in on the right opportunity and wait.  When the bait falls of the pole is the time to make the move.  Targeted companies may involve slow growth, declining growth or fast growth.   The latter of which is typically after the initial high-flying rate of sales fails to meet high expectations causing brutal punishment on stock performance.