My Experience
I am an investment advisor and the founder of Lycos Asset Management. Before I founded Lycos Asset Management, I was partner, portfolio manager, investment advisor, compliance officer and head of the Investment Committee at Chartwell Asset Management. In addition, I was the lead manager of the Magna hedge funds. I also managed separately managed portfolios for high net worth individuals. Before Chartwell, I worked at CIBC World Markets as a research associate. There I conducted research focused on individual investors’ needs and constraints. That research was primarily on equity investments but included asset allocation, hedging and other more sophisticated strategies.
My qualifications
I graduated in mathematics from the University of London (B.Sc.) and earned a master’s degree in Mathematical Finance from Oxford University. At Oxford, I conducted research under world-renowned derivatives specialists, Drs. S. Howison and P. Willmott, on stock market volatility. At the Canadian Securities Institute, I completed the Options Licensing, Futures Licensing, Technical Analysis, Options Strategies and Financial Markets Risk Management courses. Additionally, I hold the Canadian Investment Manager (CIM) and Derivatives Market Specialist (DMS) designations as well as that of the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). The CFA is the highest designation for investment professionals. Furthermore, I am a member of the CFA Institute, CFA Vancouver and the Responsible Investment Association of Canada.
Common investor problems
Institutions and family offices have dedicated in-house professionals looking after their investments. However, successful business owners and professionals tend to be far too busy doing what they are best at to look after the management of their investment portfolios.
That’s where I come in. Clients provide me mandates and I manage their portfolios on their behalf.
More importantly, many investors perform poorly even when they own investments that do well over long periods of time. For example, the Magellan Fund, with legendary investor Peter Lynch at the helm, returned an average 29% per year from 1977–1990. Yet the average investor in the fund lost money! They would buy into the fund after it performed well and sell when it performed poorly.
My solution
I do the opposite. I buy into investments that have the potential to deliver good returns when they are undervalued. Such investments tend to be stocks as they represent business ownership. I believe that business ownership is the best means of wealth creation. Innovation leads to productivity improvements that result in more goods being produced using the same amount of resources, or the same amount of goods being produced with fewer resources. This translates into good profits for the beneficiaries of innovation, i.e. businesses. I look for businesses with established track records of wealth creation (i.e. consistent profitability), good future prospects, and most important of all—only invest if the price is right.
Please feel free to contact me at 1.855.855.9267, extension 1.
