Ockham Research adheres to the philosophy first championed by William of Ockham. Ockham’s Razor promotes the idea of cutting away what is unnecessary or redundant. If you take away extraneous elements, there are fewer impediments to comprehension. Our concept is to take what appears complex and simplify it into something much clearer and thus more useful. In the case of financial markets, copious amounts of financial data are available and widely used, but we have concentrated all of that information into a few key measures for valuing securities. We combine the lessons of Ockham’s Razor with the value investing methodology of Benjamin Graham. Benjamin Graham is famous for saying, “In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run it is a weighing machine.” He succinctly stated that short term movements rely on many factors such as investor sentiment, momentum, psychology, and breaking news about a particular security. In the long term, the market will ensure an efficient “weighing” of the underlying or intrinsic value of a security. We at Ockham Research understand that the short term market movements are nearly impossible to predict consistently. However, with a long term approach it is easier to identify those securities that are undervalued. In the spirit of simplicity, Razor’s Edge pieces are designed to expand understanding about a single aspect of the economy. Also, these short insights are a way for our readers to stay in touch with what we think about some hot topics.
