The Crowded House of Investing, September 2020
Investors’ Choice: Crowded House or Prudent Distancing? September 2020 Despite the recent volatility in large cap U.S. stocks, performance leadership has been driven by the top ten contributors in the S&P 500 more greatly than any other period in the past ten years. Shares of large technology companies continued to march higher in August, causing Read more ➝
Ballast Equity Management, LLC Q2 2020 Commentary
Ballast is proud to note that its Quality Value Smallcap Strategy has attained a three-year track record as of June 30, 2020 with performance that outpaced both relevant indexes. Additional information and since-inception performance for each of the strategies may be found at www.ballastequity.com. Ballast Strategy Performance Investors apparently listened when, in late March, Federal Read more ➝
Ballast Equity Management, LLC Q1 2020 Commentary
Ballast Strategy Performance After a positive start in 2020, markets experienced a long-awaited correction during March. Each correction in history is different, but this time is quite unlike the last, the financial crisis of 2008, due to its combination of the COVID-19 pandemic, Saudi/Russia oil trade wars, supply and demand shocks and the swift Read more ➝
Pricey Markets, COVID-19 and the Benefits of Quality Investing
The long running bull market was punctuated by a sharp correction in major U.S. markets last week, with uncertainty caused by the increasing spread of the COVID-19 outbreak. As often happens in such corrections, investors appeared to broadly sell risk assets in the early days followed by a more discriminate selling that hit stocks Read more ➝
BALLAST EQUITY MANAGEMENT Q4 2019 Commentary
Stocks and other risk assets rallied into the year-end, aided by the Federal Reserve’s third cut in interest rates, diminished trade war fears, strong labor markets and resilient consumers. The rally lifted stocks broadly, and particularly lifted those of lower-quality, less profitable and more leveraged businesses, producing headwinds for the quality-biased Ballast strategies. 2019 began Read more ➝
BALLAST EQUITY MANAGEMENT Q3 2019
The quarter ending September 30 saw modest returns in U.S. mid-cap stocks while returns of small cap indexes were slightly negative. The quarter included a brief, yet sharp, period in September where value stocks outperformed their growth counterparts, leading many to wonder whether the long-awaited leadership of value stocks might be at hand. We remain in Read more ➝
Ballast Equity Management Q2 2019
Following the wild gyrations of the equity markets in late 2018 and first quarter of 2019, returns were more modest during the quarter ending June 30, 2019. Each of the Ballast Equity Management strategies exceeded its primary and secondary indexes during the quarter and we are pleased to note that the BEM Quality Value Midcap Read more ➝
Q & A with Jeff Kautz and Randy Hughes
Jeff Kautz and Randy Hughes co-founded Ballast Equity Management in 2016. More important to their clients may be the fact that they have invested together for over twenty years. Previously, the two worked together at Perkins Investment Management, a subsidiary of Janus Henderson Group, where Jeff held roles including Portfolio Manager, CEO and Chief Investment Read more ➝
Ballast Equity Management, LLC Q1 2019 Strategy Commentary
Market Overview U.S. equity returns rebounded sharply in the first quarter of 2019. Growth stocks outperformed value stocks and smaller companies generally outperformed the stocks of large-cap companies. Within every equity style and size, low-quality stocks, as ranked by Standard & Poor’s Quality Rankings, sharply outperformed high-quality stocks. An important step in the Ballast Equity Read more ➝
Bill Driscoll has joined the firm
October 19, 2017 Oakbrook Terrace, IL – Ballast Equity announced today that Bill Driscoll has joined the firm as an Investment Advisor and Portfolio Manager. In this role, he will launch and manage the Ballast Unconstrained Value strategy and will assist clients with their asset allocation decisions across investment classes. Mr. Driscoll has 19 years Read more ➝