Q1 2026 Small Cap Macro Update: The Fog of War Thirty Smelters to Four In 1980, the United States operated roughly thirty primary aluminum smelters. Today there are four. The country that once produced nearly a third of the world’s aluminum now accounts for less than two percent of global output. Production peaked at 4.6…
Markets During War: Why 80 Years of Data Say Don’t Sell the Headline (April 13, 2026). When war breaks out, markets don’t just react to the conflict itself — they often react to the fear, the uncertainty, and the “what-ifs” that come with it. That fear is often far more costly to investors than the…
Two structurally different paths to reducing concentration risk while protecting after-tax wealth For investors with concentrated equity portfolios, the desire to diversify often runs headlong into a frustrating reality: embedded capital gains. The larger the unrealized appreciation, the more painful any rebalancing becomes. Moving toward a more strategic allocation isn’t just an investment decision—it’s a…
Measuring Positive Impact in Responsible Investing Riverwater Partners’ Responsible Investing process creates value through its curation of small-cap equity portfolios of companies that have demonstrated superior returns on their responsibly deployed physical, human, and financial capital. Our Due Diligence process seeks to understand both: how a given company’s operations impact people and the planet –…
Why Quality Underperformed in 2025 (And Why We Think History Suggests a Reversal) It was a tough year for active managers who invest in quality companies. Not just for us at Riverwater, but across the board. According to Furey Research Partners, growth, core, and value managers all underperformed in 2025. Among core managers, only 16%…
Sustainability Disclosure in Small Caps: Another Dimension Where the Work Matters In late 2024, we published our first comprehensive analysis of sustainability reporting across the Russell 2000, finding that roughly half of small-cap companies disclosed Environmental, Social and Governance data—a striking gap compared to the near-universal reporting among S&P 500 constituents. We’ve now updated that research,…
The Four-Year Harvest Avocado trees take three to four years to bear first fruit and four to five years to reach full production. You can’t rush biology. A farmer who plants an orchard today is making a bet on conditions years into the future—conditions that are impossible to predict with certainty. The work happens anyway,…
Why We Diversify At a recent portfolio review, a client asked a question we hear in different forms all the time: “If the S&P 500 keeps dominating, why should I bother diversifying?” It’s a fair question. After over fifteen years in which U.S. mega-cap stocks drove most of the market’s returns, diversification can feel unnecessary—even…
