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6 November 2025

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New eBook: the best part of my fund's investment process

The next free eBook in our series marks the 500th Edition of Firstlinks

Fund manager investment processes vary widely, from the top-down to the bottom-up, the qualitative to the quantitative, the growth to the value, even the intuition and the finger-in-the-air. Price should always matter, as Warren Buffett said, "A too-high purchase price for the stock of an excellent company can undo the effects of a subsequent decade of favourable business developments."

We asked a group of about 30 fund managers we have dealt with for many years to consider their entire investment process and drill down into what drives the most success, asking:   

“What part of your investment process has contributed most to identifying winners?”

Answers varied from the specific to the general with plenty of stock examples.

Thanks especially to the sponsors of Firstlinks who not only share their investing experience and knowledge in their articles, but enable free access to our newsletter and website for the circa 100,000 monthly active readers who make around two million pageviews a year.

Firstlinks continues to give priority to informing and educating ahead of clicks and advertorials, and thanks to all our readers for your interest.

Many thanks to Assistant Editor, Leisa Bell, for liaising with all the fund managers and producing this eBook full of different and insightful perspectives on managing money. Click on the book for a copy.

  •   15 March 2023
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5 Comments
Warren Bird
March 16, 2023

Couldn't help but notice one contribution to the e-book in particular. With the overnight collapse of Credit Suisse's shareprice and concerns about a major financial institution rearing their ugly head, Brad Dunn from Daintree used that firms recent sale of CS bonds from its portfolio as an example of how the process works. Not only is that a good call, but the illustration of credit risk assessment and portfolio risk management working together is a great reinforcement of the sort of messages I've tried to convey over the years. Even highly rated issuers of bonds can get into trouble and you need diversification and vigilance to make sure they don't blow you up. Managed funds do that far better than individuals can.

michael
March 17, 2023

A very interesting mix of attitudes, with rarely spoken ways of not following the crowd. E.g. Chad Padowitz refusing to meet management.

Jeff O
March 17, 2023

Great insights from asset mangers - i'd like to see info on their long run risk adjusted performance

john
March 20, 2023

Me too !!

Douglas Isles
March 17, 2023

Congratulations to Firstlinks on reaching the 500th edition, and it was great to be a part of the new eBook created to mark this, sharing alongside many peers, the best part of our investment processes.

Ironically that, for us, is having an “outsider” mentality, yet here we benefit from being part of an illustrious group in order to share this message!

 

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