Our unique due diligence, stock selection and research production philosophies are based upon 20+ years of experience in the small cap and micro cap universe while working for major Wall Street investment bank research departments and managing mutual funds and small cap stocks. Too often, analysts spend an enormous amount of time trying to generate as much information as possible about a company and/or its industry, or is constantly tweaking their spreadsheets, ahead of a research report release. As a result, their reports are tomes that resemble college papers. They may be good reads, but they are not actionable vehicles for investors.

We harken back to our early days when research directors told us to think like money managers and not like think tanks, which we have been doing since the 1990’s. Later on, when managing money, this mindset became even more useful. Thus, Five Guiding Principles govern our coverage:

• Once an idea is discovered, perform as much industry and financial due diligence as possible as quickly as possible.
• No one has a monopoly on information or ideas. Use as many outside sources as available.
• Tell the story correctly and succintly. Less is more. No one has the time nor cares to read volumes of pages about a single stock.
• Due diligence is great, but once you initiate coverage the real work starts. You owe it to the companies and investors to do your best.
• In the world of new idea generation, a stock is either a Buy or a Sell. Hold ratings can apply to industry coverage but is not applicable in actionable coverage.

Based on these principles, none of our reports exceeds 10 pages and our initiation reports, on average, are 6-8 pages long and may include Pro Forma Income Statements or Comparable Valuation Tables. Our Company Updates, Alerts and Company Snapshots average 2-4 pages, while our Special Reports vary in length.