Investment Criteria
Extraordinary Earnings Growth:
Companies demonstrating extraordinary earnings growth are essential to our investment philosophy. We apply forward-looking research to analyze the sources and quality of growth, the dependability of the revenue stream, the operational efficiency, and the expectations for growth.
Earnings Surprise Potential:
The limited amount and overall quality of research coverage in the U.S. micro-to-mid cap arena often creates inaccurate expectations for consensus growth. WSA utilizes time-forged, internal research methods perfected within our capitalization niche to exploit this void in coverage. We capitalize on opportunities where we believe market assumptions are inaccurate and where a catalyst for growth can be identified. The majority of our efforts are spent in analysis meant to capitalize on industry-leading growth, which, in our view, is paramount to achieving superior returns in growth investing.
Fundamental Strength:
As a bottom-up, fundamental investment manager, we seek to invest in companies whose growth prospects are matched by the strength of their balance sheet and income statement. Rigorous company financial analysis is combined with competitive analyses to ensure that investment opportunities meet our standards on an absolute and peer-relative basis. The overall, as well as sector-specific, experience of our investment team is crucial in this area.
Management Vision:
We define Management Vision as the combination of strategy and execution. We seek companies led by credible management teams that are capable not only of developing competitive business strategies but also of implementing those strategies in a method that builds shareholder wealth. Our assessment of management is an art that we have developed through years of devotion to our investment niche. In a given year, we meet with hundreds of today's top management teams, providing us with an insightful, competitive framework with which to conduct our evaluations. The benefit of our experience, through years of dedication to our investment style, is the key to this analysis.