Anthony Bolton gained a stellar reputation as the manager of Fidelity’s Special Situations Fund. Against the Tide is Bolton’s recount of his investment strategy and some of the techniques used in managing investments. The material covers basic principles in assessing the merits of the company’s stocks and the techniques for selecting individual investments (both to buy and to sell). As a general statement, the concepts were well stated but didn’t offer anything new. Everything within the book (aside from Bolton’s personal observations and experiences) has been well flagged by others.
As a good example, the advantages of buying companies that have strong franchises, the potential risks of owning companies with high gearing and the choice for buying stocks at “valuation anomalies” to secure a margin of protection. These are all mantras which have been repeated by others. What I did find interesting was the addition of a technical evaluation to fundamental analysis and the behavioral aspects of “Twelve qualities that make a good portfolio manager”. A very important factor that struck me as odd was the heavy focus on direct meetings with company management.
- Commerzbank pressured that dialects are highly valued, particularly German
- Active switching
- Borrowing expenditures (see loan expenditures)
- Ireland (2)
Obviously, they are unavailable to retail traders like myself and it is somewhat irksome to really have the utility of such meetings to professionals regarded as being of high importance. Since there is nothing illegal in such conferences (no insider information should be handed), it could make for a more level playing field if such conferences were either prohibited or have did my conference call where all interested persons could join.
The security of the application form should also be tested, as it contains the personal data of the users. Multi-tasking of the applications should also be tested when other apps are open on the device. Applications quality, feel and look, ease of use etc are to be examined as it increases the user’s trust also. Try to place a trade order to get more than the value of funds available in the account and the order shouldn’t get positioned and it should pop-up a warning message stating that the funds are insufficient.
Test the ‘volume of stocks’ feature in the application form. Place a trade order for the true variety of shares higher than the available quantity of shares. Trade ought not to be placed as the quantity of shares requested is more than the available quantity. Try to place a trade order for a stock for which the expiry date has been reached. The order ought not to get placed. 1. Login to the IB program and build a profile for a Client with all required mandatory details and save the details. Now, login to the database of the same IB software and verify the facts of the client through SQL queries.
All the facts moved into through the front-end application must be kept in the data source. 2. Open an existing record of a Client and enhance few details like email, mobile phone, or address number and save the data. The updated details should get saved in the database. 3. While creating a profile for a Client, enter only a few details and without conserving the info close the sign or software right out of the program. Now check in the data source that the sooner inserted details ought not to get kept. 4. Make an effort to produce a duplicate record for an already existing client, the record should not get created.