Gratitude For Green Thumbs
Discovery Club, by Mark Robertson, Managing Partner December 2nd, 2016
“Anybody can do ‘this.’ We’ll show you how.”
Ken Kavula and I have spent recent weekends with gatherings of friends, also known as friendly long-term investors, who meet to share ideas and provide support for a nation of seekers. Successful long term investing is a worthy quest. Our visits have included places like Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Mid-Michigan and Peoria. We’re reminded of the power of facing this challenge together, armed with discipline and the patience that is bolstered by doing this together. The following commentary is reprised from a previously published article written following similar journeys and celebrations over ten years ago.
The discovery and strategic long-term ownership of Better Companies at Better Prices is our time-honored campaign. Our community has long relied on champions across this nation to deliver the message. Our volunteer champions have but one mission — to tell as many people as possible that they’re invited to experience a lifetime of successful investing.
Over ten years ago, we spent a weekend in Springfield, Ill., with a whole bunch of those champions, including several of the Beardstown Ladies. Better Investing magazine used to provide an annual reminder of outstanding performance by investment clubs and include the Better Investing Top 50 Honor Roll. The finalists were generated by an annual Club Performance Survey. To qualify for the list, the club must have been in operation for a minimum of 8 years. Annualized rates of return were determined — using ledgers, portfolio summaries and cash flow statements — and the lifetime performance of the clubs was benchmarked against matching investments in the S&P 500 index.
Something In The Water
We’ve often observed concentrations of superior performance and our current visits will often include a club-by-club review of portfolios that we call jamborees. Spanning the Midwest (and beyond) it’s clear that powerful influences have been at work. Our volunteer champions have been busy, doing their best rendition of Johnny Appleseed.
Think back to what sorts of seeds were sown in the mid-1990s as the Beardstown Ladies told us that they’d be willing to help anybody learn how to do what we do.
Think about the investment clubs that formed during that period. They learned that the most important thing is to believe that it was (and is) possible to invest regularly in quality companies. Our champions served as coaches and issued helpful consistent reminders. Price matters. Buy to hold, not to forget. Treat your portfolio like a garden. It’s OK to sell a stock. When was the last time you planted a bunch of tomato plants in May and didn’t come back to check in on it until September?
Clubs Survive, Grow and Glow
Mr. Appleseed would be proud. The seeds, cast to the winds of the prairie, have become healthy young “trees.”
The survey Honor Roll included 12 clubs from Illinois. Several of them were about 8 years old and traced their roots directly to the Beardstown phenomenon. A number of other clubs in attendance at the Investors Fair were approaching 8 years of group efforts. A closer look revealed that another six to eight clubs would have made the Top 50 — if only they were old enough. One of the top place winners in that year’s performance survey hailed from Mason City, Ill. The Mason City Women had five successful years in the hopper and are optimistic about their future. Another club of ladies from Mt. Carroll, Ill., was 7 years old, and their nest egg would have placed 14th in that year’s Honor Roll if they had been eligible. A number of these clubs continue to prosper and several of them participated in last month’s Jamborees.
Our volunteer champions from venue to venue beamed with pride. “I helped to mentor that club during their early days.” “Those ladies attended my classes.” “I started that club 10 years ago, they must have kicked out the men?”
What’s the best way to maximize your experience? Discover the community of successful long-term investors that is all around you. Discover the local and national opportunities that are available to you. Learn that it is possible to gauge a company’s quality — because it is. Our champions will show you how. Look a little closer and you’ll notice that the investment education volunteers we meet have green thumbs.
On behalf of Manifest Investing, we thank all of you, particularly those of you who stepped up and identified candidates for this year’s Best Small Company feature. I have a feeling that a few of these will deliver delicious rewards in years and decades to come.
Mark Robertson
Mark Robertson is founder and managing partner of Manifest Investing, a source for research and portfolio management focusing on strategic long term investors.