Laying the Tracks Capital, Infrastructure, and the Small Cap Opportunity Inside the AI Buildout On May 10th 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad reached Promontory Summit, UT, completing the first transcontinental railroad at a cost of roughly $109 million, more than $2.6 billion today.1 Yet within three years, the railroad’s own…
Q1 2026 Small Cap Macro Update: The Fog of Excursion 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…
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,…
Bottom of the Lineup, Top of the Charts Like our hometown team, the Milwaukee Brewers, small caps have spent the better part of fifteen years out of favor—grinding out singles and doubles while mega-caps launched moonshots. This season, both are reminding us that cycles turn, and that discipline can ultimately trump pure scale. Source: Furey…
Q2 2025 Market Paradox: Trade Chaos (Check ✔), Market Rally (Check ✔) The quarter brought the paradoxical combination of unprecedented global trade volatility with surprisingly resilient market performance. From the United States’ military engagement with Iran—which counterintuitively drove oil prices below pre-war levels—to the dramatic “TACO trade” saga where Liberation Day tariffs sparked violent market…
Small-Cap Stocks Q1 2025 Update: Pinching Pennies Amid Tariff and Fiscal Headwinds Small-cap stocks took a step back in this quarter. This followed strong momentum after the November election. Tariff announcements created significant business uncertainty as they flipped between on again off again tariff announcements with two of our largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico. The…
Small-Cap Returns in 2024: Breaking a 46-Year Pattern Small caps logged respectable returns in 2024, but like a broken record, took another turn and lagged behind their large cap brethren. That is neither awe inspiring nor shocking given small caps’ 14-year relative underperformance run. What is truly shocking is that the Russell 2000’s 11.5% return…
Small-cap stocks outperformed most major asset classes this quarter—such a rare event we can hardly remember the last time it happened! Interestingly, the majority of this performance occurred during a brief five-day trading window in early July, when small-caps surged 12%. That spike is significant, because it highlights how far small-caps had fallen behind and …
This quarter, we are honored to present a special reflection letter penned by Greg Wait, as he marks his retirement after a distinguished investing career. His unwavering commitment to our clients and his passion for responsible investment have left a mark on our firm and the broader investment community. As Greg shares some of the…
Q1 2024 Market and Strategies Update Houston, the Eagle has Landed Nearly 55 years have passed since the historic Apollo 11 mission culminated with Neil Armstrong’s iconic declaration from the lunar surface: “Houston, Tranquility Base here…the Eagle has landed.” This momentous achievement teetered on the brink of failure as the lunar module, Eagle, initially bypassed…
