Many institutions believe that investments should be held for the long term and this is the only way to make worthwhile returns.  This is known as a buy and hold strategy.  This approach may have served investors well when markets have risen for prolonged periods of time (a bull market), but we believe this strategy does not hold good when marekts are in a prolonged decline (a bear market).

Where Barmac and most institutions differ, is that we believe we are in a global bear market which as existed since 2000, whereas institutions believe that what we have witnessed is a "bear phase"in a bull market.  We also believe bear markets are more common than we are led to think and often last for more than 10 years.

It is our judgement, that the buy and hold strategies that have held good for so long will seen to be irrelevant in this new type of investment environment.  No matter how good an institution is at picking stocks, if these are held for a long time, their value will more likely than not be eroded as market sentiment declines.

It is based on this view that we have developed our investment methodology and in particular, our unique in-house propriety analysis, the Barmac Indicator.

For a full commentary on our view of the market click here