Bull Sessions (10/10/2023)

Red Rabbits Rising! Our hunt for the Best Small Companies (2024) continues in earnest — featuring some our time-honored sources of faster-growing opportunities to study. Meb Faber's outlook on dividends. More mailbag action … let us know what’s on your mind.

In this Bull Sessions episode from October 10, 2023, Mark Robertson and Ken Kavula discuss market performance and investment strategy in the context of recent market volatility. The speakers analyze the Value Line Arithmetic Average and Manifest Investing's median projected returns (MyPAR), noting interesting divergences between Value Line's conservative low-end estimates and actual observed returns from stock study guides. They discuss how the samples differ between indices, with MyPAR including more small and mid-cap companies, and whether investors should target a point between Value Line's low and high estimates rather than strictly the low number. Robertson shares quarterly results showing a 9.7% expected four-year return versus 7% actual results through September, characterizing this as a validation that stock selection guide methodology continues to work effectively. The speakers also celebrate the historical success of long-term, buy-and-hold investing, referencing a notable one-time selection from the Roundtable archives: Hugh McManus's pick of Costco back in 2010, which has dramatically outperformed expectations.