Since 1997, Ensemble Capital has built focused investment portfolios and provided wealth management advice to families and charitable institutions. Along the way, we’ve found that by maintaining an open dialog with our clients, we’ve helped them build conviction in our investment process, which allows them to stick through the rough patches and benefit from long term returns. Just as importantly, we’ve found that this running dialog with our clients greatly enhances our own thinking.

So today we’re happy to launch Intrinsic Investing, a publication of Ensemble Capital. Our hope is that we can build a community of readers with whom we can jointly enhance our thinking on investing.

While our private clients are used to regularly interacting with the people handling their account, getting regular portfolio updates and otherwise building a relationship of trust that gives them conviction in our investment process, many investors get little of this access. We believe that social media offers an untapped opportunity for wealth management and asset management firms to build relationships of trust with their investors.

This belief comes from my own experience writing Tactical Philanthropy from 2006-2011. Ensemble Capital has long had a focus on serving charitable institutions and philanthropic families. With Tactical Philanthropy, I built a community of 25,000 monthly readers, wrote a regular column for the Financial Times and became a frequent commentator on philanthropic trends in publications such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

The big lesson I drew from writing Tactical Philanthropy was that there is nothing like regularly publishing your ideas to refine and enhance your thinking. I also learned that conviction in an idea, one of the most underappreciated elements of a successful investment process, is built through gaining a full understanding of a concept (both the positives and the negatives). We think that building conviction in our portfolio holdings and helping our investors build conviction in our process is key to successfully navigating the investment landscape over the long term. We hope that Intrinsic Investing can be a tool for pursuing that goal.

With Intrinsic Investing, our goal is to enhance the communication we have with our private clients and build a larger conversation with the broader investment community. With Tactical Philanthropy, we saw firsthand the power of social media to build true community and enhance our thinking through engaged conversation. We hope Intrinsic Investing can offer a similar experience.

For more information about positions owned by Ensemble Capital on behalf of clients as well as additional disclosure information related to this post, please CLICK HERE.

While we do not accept public comments on this blog for compliance reasons, we encourage readers to contact us with their thoughts.

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