Updated May 24, 2026 · 2142 articles
Insights
Research, news and field guides on institutional positioning. Powered by real SEC filings — 13F, 13D/G, Form 4.
Conviction Buys vs Forced Selling: Reading Intent in a 13F
A fund's shrinking assets and trimmed positions look bearish, but often aren't, the manager may just be raising cash for redemptions. Learn to tell forced, flow-driven selling from genuine conviction in a 13F, why buying against a falling asset base is the clearest signal of all.
Sarah MitchellHow Interest Rates Affect Stock Prices
Buffett likened interest rates to gravity for asset prices. Learn the channels through which rates move stocks, discounting future cash, competition from bond yields, debt costs, and the economy, why growth and income stocks are most sensitive, and how a 13F reveals rate exposure.
Sarah MitchellBid-Ask Spreads and Liquidity: The Hidden Cost of Trading
Every trade has two prices, the bid and the ask, and the gap between them is a real, often invisible cost. Learn how the bid-ask spread measures liquidity, why it widens in small caps, why scale and small-cap investing are in tension, and what a 13F reveals about a manager's liquidity risk.
Sarah MitchellEqual-Weight vs Cap-Weight: How Much of Each Stock?
How much of each stock you own can matter as much as which stocks you pick. Learn how cap-weighting concentrates a portfolio in the largest companies, how equal-weighting tilts toward smaller and cheaper names with built-in rebalancing, and how a 13F reveals which a manager uses.
Sarah MitchellToll-Booth Businesses: Getting Paid for the Flow
A toll road earns the same fee whether the cargo is cheap or expensive, it just needs traffic. Learn why fee-based, toll-booth business models, pipelines, payment networks, exchanges, produce such steady cash flows, what still threatens them, and why they anchor income portfolios.
Sarah MitchellMLPs and K-1 Forms: The Structure Behind Pipeline Yields
Many big energy-infrastructure names are master limited partnerships, not ordinary corporations, which avoids double taxation but issues a Schedule K-1 instead of a 1099. Learn how the MLP structure works, the tax and paperwork trade-offs behind those high pipeline yields, and how MLPs appear in a 13F.
Sarah MitchellCambiar Investors 13F (2026 Q1): A Flat Relative-Value Book
Cambiar Investors runs relative value with a level hand: its 2026 Q1 book holds 145 names with the top ten all within a hair of 2.7% each. A diversified, cross-sector basket of relatively cheap stocks, with marginal adds to Delta, Uber and Elevance, balance as the whole strategy.
Marcus ChenChamplain 13F (2026 Q1): Buying Quality Tech as Assets Shrink
Champlain Investment Partners' SMID book shrank about 20% on outflows in 2026 Q1, but underneath it the firm bought decisively, Veeva up 81% of shares, Synopsys 39%, a new EOG stake. A clear rotation toward quality software, and a lesson in reading conviction against a falling asset base.
Marcus ChenConestoga Capital 13F (2026 Q1): A Small-Cap Growth Specialist
Conestoga Capital focuses on small-cap growth, the niche, under-followed companies index funds can't reach. Its 2026 Q1 book of quality small-caps, RBC Bearings, Casella, Balchem, is evenly weighted by discipline, with broad trims signaling outflows and a new FirstService stake.
Marcus ChenTortoise Capital 13F (2026 Q1): A Pure Energy-Infrastructure Book
Tortoise Capital doesn't dabble in energy, it specializes. Its 2026 Q1 13F is a pure midstream book of pipelines, processing, and LNG export, led by Targa, Williams and Energy Transfer, with a Cheniere add. Learn why the fee-based toll-road model draws a specialist, and the sector-bet risk.
Marcus ChenMarket-Cap Tiers: Why a Company's Size Matters
A company's market cap shapes how its stock behaves, who owns it, and what edge is even possible. Learn the size tiers from mega- to micro-cap, the small-cap risk-and-opportunity trade-off, why scale pushes big funds toward megacaps, and how a 13F reveals the game a manager plays.
Sarah MitchellCorrelation: Why Diversification Is About Difference, Not Count
Owning fifty stocks isn't diversified if they all move together. Learn how correlation, not the number of holdings, drives real diversification, why it is called the only free lunch in investing, why correlations spike toward 1 in a crisis, and how to read it in a 13F.
Sarah MitchellReinvestment and Return on Incremental Capital
Two companies with the same profits can have wildly different futures, depending on what they can do with each new dollar. Learn return on incremental capital and the reinvestment runway, the engine behind true compounders, and why a cash cow is a different kind of investment.
Sarah MitchellThe Sharpe Ratio: Measuring Return Against Risk
A 20% return isn't automatically better than 12%, it depends on the risk taken. Learn how the Sharpe ratio measures excess return per unit of volatility, why a steadier portfolio can be the more skillful one, what the ratio misses, and why risk-adjusted thinking matters.
Sarah MitchellHolding Cash: Why Dry Powder Is an Active Decision
For disciplined value investors, holding cash is an active choice, not leftover money. Learn why managers keep dry powder when stocks look expensive, how it cushions drawdowns and funds bargains in a panic, the real cost of cash drag, and why a 13F can't show it.
Sarah MitchellEmerging Markets Investing: Higher Growth, Different Risks
Emerging markets offer some of investing's most compelling growth stories alongside its sharpest risks, volatile currencies, abrupt policy shifts, thinner liquidity. Learn what makes EM different, why investors are drawn to it, and how to read emerging-markets exposure in a 13F.
Sarah MitchellMawer 13F (2026 Q1): A Global-Quality Book in Broad Retreat
Mawer, the Calgary firm whose motto is be boring, make money, runs a patient global-quality book. Its 2026 Q1 US filing shows broad retreat, nearly every major position trimmed and reported value down from $22B to $15B, the fingerprint of outflows rather than lost conviction.
Marcus ChenMairs & Power 13F (2026 Q1): Megacaps and a Minnesota Tilt
Mairs & Power has managed money from St. Paul since 1931, and its book carries a hometown accent. Its 2026 Q1 13F pairs a megacap-tech core, Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, with prominent Minnesota industrials like Graco and Toro, a quality-growth discipline rooted in local knowledge.
Marcus ChenWestwood Global 13F (2026 Q1): 12 Stocks, Mostly Latin America
Westwood Global runs emerging-markets investing the rare way: just 12 high-conviction positions, mostly Latin American. Its 2026 Q1 book is anchored by Credicorp and Itaú, with a 78% add to Argentina's Grupo Galicia and a new Yum China stake, a focused regional wager, not diversified EM.
Marcus ChenFirst Pacific Advisors 13F (2026 Q1): Value With a Quality Streak
First Pacific Advisors occupies the middle ground of value investing, owning unloved value names and high-quality compounders side by side when the price is right. Its 2026 Q1 book pairs Analog Devices and Alphabet with Citigroup and Comcast, while trimming several winners.
Marcus Chen