Market Insights

Tips on How to Approach Value Investing

Prospector approaches value investing from a credit perspective, with an emphasis on value-based principles and bottom-up fundamental analysis.

Our in-house, deep dive research is key to our approach, focusing on regulatory and statutory statements when available, in addition to GAAP.

We look at...

Industry Spotlight: Property-Casualty Insurance for Commercial Lines

Businesses purchase insurance for vehicles, property, liability, and employees, among others. Workers’ compensation insurance is mandated by law, but most other coverages are purchased regardless. Actuarial data on historical loss trends is prevalent, but less reliable for extrapolation, for the...

Value Stocks as a Fixed Income Replacement

The yield component of value stocks can play a valuable role in client portfolios given the lack of yield currently available from traditional fixed income asset classes as well as the interest rate (duration) risk associated with those types of securities.

The yield component is also an advantage...

Growth Versus Value: Historic Patterns of Cyclicality

After a decade where the dramatic outperformance of growth stocks left many value investors scratching their heads, the recent rise in interest rates has poured cold water on high-flying tech stocks and helped swing the pendulum back to value stocks. In particular, the financial sector, which...

Potential Market Implications of the “Blue Ripple”

The following blog is an excerpt from our Q4 client letter that was written in late January 2021. We believe the information around industrial production, inflation and bond yields remains as relevant as ever and we hope you find this piece helpful.

Growth stocks dominated over their value brethren...

Do People Really Understand What’s in an Index?

Have you ever been researching a stock and noticed that it has no P/E ratio? This is usually because the company is unprofitable and thus has no earnings to use as the denominator within the ratio. Current examples of well-known companies with no earnings include Snap (maker of Snapchat), Uber,...

Industry Spotlight: Insurance Distribution

Insurance is generally sold “direct” by insurance companies’ paid employees or sold via agents/brokers also known as third party distributors. The economics of an agent/broker are very attractive. They charge a commission/fee for their services (typically a percentage of the premiums) and do not...

[PODCAST] The Path to Value Investing with PM Steve Labbe

After graduating with a degree in mathematics and pursuing a job as a teacher, Steve Labbe could have never predicted he would spend the next 16 years working for a sell-side research firm and eventually become a portfolio manager at Prospector Partners.

Like many people, his non-traditional...

Reddit Traders and Things That Remind Us of the Dot-Com Bubble

If you were working in the investment industry during the late 1990s, what were some of the most excessive, unreasonable market events you remember? Here are some that may jog your memory:

• Mark Cuban’s Broadcast.com (known as AudioNet prior to the name change), which primarily streamed...

[PODCAST] The Prospector Flavor of Value Investing with PM Jason Kish

On a daily basis, investors are exposed to a lot of numbers and a lot of information, but it should be known that portfolio evaluation goes beyond just the stats.