Teh Hooi Leng calls it a day (Aggregate Asset Management)

For AUM, AAM has close to half a billion. For performance, it has consistently been returning 10% p.a. net of fees. To me, both indicators suggest that AAM has been successful.

I was actually referring to this, but it still isn't up yet:
http://www.inclusif.com.sg/

I don't recall any mention that she is married.

(21-05-2017, 04:19 PM)karlmarx Wrote: For AUM, AAM has close to half a billion. For performance, it has consistently been returning 10% p.a. net of fees. To me, both indicators suggest that AAM has been successful.

I was actually referring to this, but it still isn't up yet:
http://www.inclusif.com.sg/

I don't recall any mention that she is married.

I thought Teh's investment style is quite different from a true value investor. She would buy a large portfolio of stocks (like 100 or more), stocks that fit into her investment criteria like some P/B vs dividend ratio etc, without actually understanding the business and fundamentals of each stock in the portfolio thoroughly. A true value investor would want to leave no stone unturned. So a different investment philosophy with the AAM founders I supposed.

(21-05-2017, 08:37 PM)luckystar Wrote:

(21-05-2017, 04:19 PM)karlmarx Wrote: For AUM, AAM has close to half a billion. For performance, it has consistently been returning 10% p.a. net of fees. To me, both indicators suggest that AAM has been successful.

I was actually referring to this, but it still isn't up yet:
http://www.inclusif.com.sg/

I don't recall any mention that she is married.

I thought Teh's investment style is quite different from a true value investor. She would buy a large portfolio of stocks (like 100 or more), stocks that fit into her investment criteria like some P/B vs dividend ratio etc, without actually understanding the business and fundamentals of each stock in the portfolio thoroughly. A true value investor would want to leave no stone unturned. So a different investment philosophy with the AAM founders I supposed.

The style is used by AAM too. AAM was founded by a team out from Yeoman Capital, which is also following similar style.

Yes, you are quite right about Teh's investment style. But take a look at what is written on AAM's website:

'At initial entry, we never allocate more than 1% of our funds into a new idea. We would increase our allocations as our understanding increases, up to a limit of 5% of our portfolio. But so far, we have found the allocation of approximately 1% to each stock is optimal.

Why not allocate more than 20% or more to a single idea? No, – we don’t do that – that is called gambling.'

http://www.aggregate.com.sg/process-2

She and AAM are all "Quants" ie they invest base on Quantitative analysis base on fix hurdle rates without understanding the fundamentals of the company. Some will argue that they are investing blindly but they would argue it otherwise. Their approach would be base on years of quantitative data to back their investing thesis. So is it more superior to FA or TA? I really don't know. I guess there are many ways to skin a cat. The devil is probably is in the details as to how discipline you follow it.

I'm not sure whether AAM pays any attention to the fundamental of whatever they have bought. I believe they do, it would be irresponsible if they didn't. After all, any one can throw 100 darts from a list of 'undervalued stocks' to pick 100 stocks. Teh said her screen showed 6,000 undervalued stocks in APAC.

In any case, it is not impossible to fill your portfolio with 100 holdings that you are familiar with, and which you think are undervalued. It just takes a lot of time (years) to build your knowledge through research; something which full time portfolio managers can afford.

Diversifying your portfolio into more holdings shouldn't mean you are allowed to know less of each of your holding, although it does mean any financial setback will be minimised.

I don't think AAM are quants. I think they are fundamental factor based broad investing which I think is similar to Yeoman

I don't know that THL used to have 100 stocks portfolio as a journalist before joining AAM

Valuebuddies,
1. Graham actually don't feel like completing 5th edition of his book as he felt that fundamental investing is quite meaningless.
2. Graham passed away on 21 Sep 1976, age 82.
3. The following was an interview by Medical Economic, published on 20 Sep 1976.
"The Simplest Way to Select Bargain Stocks"
Target return: 15% pa at least


Q. Would you start by telling us how you arrived at the simplified Graham technique?
A. Well, for the past few years I've been testing the results of selecting undervalued stocks according to a few simple criteria.


Q. What about conventional yardsticks like a company's projected earnings or market share for evaluating stocks?
A. These factors are significant in theory, but they turn out to be of little practical use.
    My investigations have convinced me you can predetermine these logical "buy" and "sell" levels for a widely diversified portfolio without getting involved in weighing the fundamental factors affecting the prospects of specific companies or industries.

Q. That kind of thinking - ignoring fundamentals - would be branded as heresy by many analysts today...
A. Maybe so, but my research shows it works. 
    What's needed is,
    first, a definite rule for purchasing which indicates a priori that you're acquiring stocks for less than they're worth.
    Second, you have to operate with a large enough number of stocks to make the approach effective.
    And finally you need a very definite guideline for selling.

Q. Can a doctor or any investor, like me, do all that?
A. Absolutely.

Q. How should I start?
A. By making as large a list as possible of common stocks currently selling at no more than seven times their latest - not projected....

Q. Once I've gone thru the screening process and settled on my "buy" candidates, how do I go about structuring a portfolio?
A. To give yourself the best odds statistically, the more stocks you have to play with, the better.  A portfolio of 30 would probably be an ideal minimum.  If your capital is limited, you can deal in "odd lots" - less than 100 shares of stocks.

If you go look at AAM website, there are a couple of videos by the 2 founders, and they talk value investment like Benjamin Graham. I really dont think their investment style is pure quantitative, criteria based (this is more of Teh's approach). They preached about value traps, how to spot a fraudulent company etc, which I doubt a pure quantitative based investment criteria that invest into 100s of stocks would catch. If anything, they may get caught buy those faked superior returns companies unless they analyse their fundamentals carefully. By investing into 100s of them is a way for them to reduce the damage caused by a bad catch.

An undervalued stock is an undervalued stock. It has no correlation to the no. of stocks you have inside your portfolio. Even if you have 10000 stocks in your portfolio, the next undervalued stock is still an undervalued stock.

Most of these successful investors are simply different variants of Graham's investment methodology. There are minute differences but the fundamental principles of stock selection are largely the same.