The James philosophy is to grow clients’ funds while stressing the preservation of capital. The goal is to minimize downside risk without limiting upside potential. Our proprietary ranking system, alongside continuing research, helps us to achieve desired results in client portfolios.
"By re-evaluating everything we do on an ongoing basis, we continually keep ourselves fresh, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to stick around for 40 plus years."
At its broadest terms the research performed by James Investment has two primary purposes, to identify the risk levels of the stock and bond markets and to choose what we feel are the best available securities.
Each year a major effort is placed on discerning the long-term path of the economy, stocks, bonds, and international markets. This provides guidance in determining whether markets are giving us opportunities to buy or sell or whether a recent movement in the market is simply fool’s gold.
The risk levels of the market are assessed every weekend with the help of James validated market risk indicators. Presently, we have over 100 separate market risk indicators. Each indicator is classified as favorable, neutral, or unfavorable. While no single indicator is deemed to be perfect, it is normal for the summation of the indicators to provide guidance for the future.
Likewise, James Investment is also concerned about individual stock selection. We continue to develop, research, and test our stock selection model. This quantitative model is used to provide guidance on an individual stock’s potential. We have found that this ranking system recognizes attractive buy candidates. Perhaps its best value is found in our sell discipline. If a stock ranks poorly in our ranking system, the security will be reviewed by the investment committee for possible sale.