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 Research Reports
BlackRock Inflation Protected Bond: While the decline in oil prices and the European sovereign debt crisis have reignited investors’ fears of a double-dip recession and/or deflation, Weinstein believes the noise surrounding those market events has masked fundamental causes of weakness in the U.S. economy: weak employment and weak consumption. As a result, he says U.S. GDP growth in 2011 may be positive but not strong enough to create inflation. He expects inflation to average zero in the coming year. 
Fairholme: Since we last spoke with the Fairholme team about a year ago, the portfolio has changed dramatically. In our recent conversation, Charlie Fernandez, chief research officer, told us that although he and Bruce Berkowitz are not economists, they believe that the risk of a double-dip recession is minimal and that they have positioned the portfolio to be more offensive, as evidenced by the fund’s hefty 36% weighting to financial companies.
Lazard International Strategic Equity: While Little acknowledges that the evolving debt crisis in Europe has increased the risk of a recession there, he believes stock prices of many companies have come down a lot and are now looking attractive.
Touchstone Sands Capital Institutional Growth Fund: Sands Capital believes that over time, stock prices track earnings growth. They believe great investment ideas are rare, and seek to selectively invest in 25 to 30 leading businesses in a promising business space that will grow at a sustainable above-average rate relative to the broad market. Their investment approach is purely bottom up and fundamentals driven, and research focuses on finding financially sound, industry-leading companies that have a sustainable competitive edge. In this update, we discuss two recent purchases, emphasizing the above investment criterion.
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