Market Insights

Update on Inflation and U.S. Interest Rate Policy

On Thursday, August 27, 2020, Federal Reserve (Fed) Chairman Jerome Powell spoke at the highly anticipated virtual version of the Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference. In providing an update on inflation, Mr. Powell took a majorly dovish tone and reiterated the Fed’s desire for 2% inflation,...

Meet the Team | Steve Labbe, CFA

We believe the best partnerships are built upon strong relationships between people. In order for you to get to know us better, here’s the newest addition to our “Meet the Team” blog series.

Meet Steve Labbe, Portfolio Manager and Analyst at Prospector Partners. Mr. Labbe has been with the firm...

Playing the Recession Playbook in Defense, Part 2

Last week, we discussed how we have been active investors in the defense industry for years. There are a number of aspects we find attractive in the industry:

• Solid free cash flow yields
• Strong growth since the 2015 budget trough following the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and the Budget Control Act...

Playing the Recession Playbook in Defense, Part 1

We have been active investors in the defense industry for a number of years. There are a number of aspects we find attractive in the industry:

A Wild Second Quarter & Outlook for Remainder of 2020

Coronavirus Pandemic

The COVID-19 global pandemic continued to have massive implications during the second quarter, as cases continued to rapidly rise in the United States. The unemployment rate reached 14.7% in April, and U.S. GDP is estimated to have contracted by over 30% in the quarter after...

Our 3 Most Popular Blogs of 2020

We sincerely appreciate your continued interest and support of our market insights.  Below we recap our three most popular blog posts of 2020.  If there is a topic you would like for us to cover, please contact us.  

As always, we welcome your comments or questions.

Best wishes,Prospector Partners

[PODCAST] Entrepreneurship, Firm Culture and a Winning Team with John Gillespie

Prospector Partners Founder and Portfolio Manager John Gillespie learned some valuable lessons in the process of starting his own asset management firm. Many of those lessons revolved around building a strong team, culture and incentive structure, but these ideas also gave him a new perspective...

[PODCAST] John Gillespie on the Prospector Investment Approach

Many equity investors tend to be optimists, counting on their portfolio’s winners to offset losers. Prospector founder John Gillespie has a different philosophy. Mr. Gillespie and his team spend just as much time considering what could go wrong with a stock as they do determining what could go...

Are Market Cap-Weighted Indices Reflective of the Economy?

The equity markets have rallied considerably since their March lows. In fact, the S&P 500 Index has rallied to such an extent (down just 11.1% year-to-date through May 14^th) that it barely seems to portray an underlying U.S. economy that just had 33 million people file for unemployment benefits....

The Outlook for Financial Services Stocks

Since investing throughout the financial services sector is a specialty of ours, here is an update on where things stand on an industry-by-industry basis, including where we’re seeing opportunities.

Property and Casualty Insurers

Property and casualty underwriter stocks have been harshly punished...