Noumenon
The thing itself.
In philosophy, the noumenon is the thing as it truly is — distinct from the phenomenon, the thing as it appears. Markets price appearances. Our work is with what is actually there: the business itself, its earnings, its durability, and the worth that remains when sentiment is stripped away.
We buy a business's reality when the market mistakes it for its appearance.
Approach
A few convictions, held plainly.
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I
Value over price.
A share is a claim on a business, not a ticker. We estimate what the business is worth and pay less.
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II
A margin of safety.
We want a floor beneath the price — room to be wrong and still be sound.
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III
Patience as method.
Good judgments are rare and slow. We concentrate, then wait.
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IV
Independence.
We reach our own conclusions from primary sources.
Instrument
Infimum
Our analysis is supported by Infimum, a research tool built in-house. In mathematics, the infimum is the greatest lower bound — the floor beneath a set of values. The name fits the work: finding the price below which a sound business is hard to lose money on.