News & Views

News & Views

The Call of the Wild (Mar 2020)

In our latest commentary, we look back to the great Jack London novel The Call of The Wild as a parallel to the herd mentality dominating the current investment environment. Following a dozen years of post-Global Financial Crisis policy designed to transfer wealth from financial assets to real assets, investors who are operating in panic mode are buying and selling the wrong assets. This has created incredibly cheap buying opportunities and, with that, a favorable environment for value investors.

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Once Upon a Time on Wall Street (Oct 2019)

In our most recent commentary, we pay homage to the 1960’s by contrasting our current environment to that of a mere half-century ago; it was a period when Wall Street saw only good things while Main Street saw turmoil and change. We view 2019 as arguably a supercharged version of the late 1960’s, which can serve as a guide and an excellent source of instruction on how to successfully navigate the current investment environment.

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The Renaissance and the Entropic Arrow of Time (May 2019)

The most recent commentary contrast the renaissance period to the contemporary era. A half-millennium ago, mankind's search for truth began to breakdown the stifling barriers to thought and liberty. In the contemporary world where truth and liberty have conceptually become easy, they are being sacrificed. While this is a gross generalization, excellent opportunities have been opened up for those willing to use common sense, dig for the truth, and act upon their conviction. At Kopernik, we continue conducting in-depth due diligence, thoughtfully appraising value, maintaining patience and self-control, and staying disciplined in our process.

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Waiting for Sebastian (Oct 2018)

We discuss the current investment environment by drawing parallels to the Portuguese myth based on the belief that King Sebastian will return to save Portugal. This seemingly captures the way most people feel about value investing by sneering at unpopular, but value-laden, tangible assets. We believe that what others condescendingly snub as “cigar butts” may turn out to be, figuratively, valuable ‘Cubans’, wrapper intact.

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Master and Servant (Jun 2018)

We discuss the dangers and opportunities created investors allow independent thought and judgment to be subordinated by the dominant theories of the day; to prescriptive economic theories; to formulaic investment models; and especially to price insensitive investment approaches. Why Kopernik prefers independent thought to dependency and judgement to data. We discuss why the future looks bright for active investing, for value investing, and for idiosyncratic investing.

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Misunderstandings Present Great Opportunities (Jan 2023)

In his latest commentary, Kopernik analyst and co-portfolio manager for the International Strategy, Mark McKinney analyzes and compares how the current developed world’s characteristics such as inflation, excessive deficits, censorship and politicized economic decision-making are looking more like emerging markets. This begs rethinking the prevailing rules and risks applied in the valuations of both. Is the valuation premium awarded to developed markets for so long still warranted? Or do emerging markets with sizable discounts offer better investment opportunities due to the misunderstood risks?

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Kopernik Perspective: A Differentiated Approach to ESG (July 2022)

In this whitepaper on ESG, Kopernik’s investment research team provides an update to our March 2021 webinar on the same topic. In summary, ESG is important, complex, and nuanced. This whitepaper will give an update on how we think about the current ESG environment, provide examples of the types of ESG risks we are evaluating, and explain how we integrate ESG risk into our valuation process.

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Managing Geopolitical Risk in a Global Portfolio (July 2022)

In this whitepaper, Kopernik’s investment research team builds on our April 2022 webinar about geopolitical risk, breaking down our process and examples of both successes and losses in emerging markets. Evaluating geopolitical risk has always been a key factor in our global investment process. As global crises have made our role as investment manager more crucial than ever, our mission of being independent thought leaders could not be more pertinent.

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Fear is Good (July 2022)

In his latest commentary, Kopernik analyst and co-portfolio manager for the International Strategy, Mark McKinney, compares today’s U.S. market to the tech bubble of the late 1990s and 2000s. He also gives examples of the many “mini bubbles” that have already burst under the surface of the bigger names in the index. Lastly, there are some thoughts on the US Dollar, inflation, and gold.

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The Greater The Suffering, The Greater The Peace (Jan 2022)

In his latest commentary, Kopernik analyst and co-portfolio manager for the International Strategy, Mark McKinney, compares the actions of the U.S. Federal Reserve and the resultant inflation and choppy investment environment to the dangerous aspirations of villains in Hollywood spy films and how Kopernik is actively managing our investments through “the greater suffering.”

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Lord make me green…but not yet (Nov 2021)

In his latest commentary, “Lord make me green…but not yet”, Kopernik Analyst Steve Rosenthal discusses a range of factors that handicap “net-zero” emission pledges around the world. While this ambitious goal will hopefully materialize, there resides a paradox in achieving it at the rate and extent we want/need.

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Value Investor Insight - featuring Dave Iben - July 31, 2020

Kopernik CIO Dave Iben recently spoke with Value Investor Insight for a feature piece on where he's finding value and why it's one of the best times ever to be an active investor. Read the full interview here to learn more about how he's identifying opportunities in high-quality companies in emerging markets as well as situations where cash flows are latent and reside in real assets.

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The Antidote to Correlation Webinar - Mining Companies

September 10, 2020 - Director of Research/Analyst Alissa Corcoran interviews analysts Steve Rosenthal and Taylor McKenna about how Kopernik values mining companies. Although these companies may come with a lot of baggage, we believe the upside potential more than offsets the risk. We discussed how we assess the risk, the opportunities we are seeing today, and took time to answer live questions.

Please click here to watch the replay.

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The Super Terrific Happy Hour Podcast - With Stephanie Pomboy and Grant Williams featuring David Iben - July 8, 2020

Kopernik CIO, David Iben, joins Stephanie Pomboy & Grant Williams to discuss the art of value investing, the challenges it faces in today's market environment and why it's a bad idea to write any obituaries for the strategy just yet. Tune in to this podcast to listen as Dave discusses the cycles he's witnessed over his career as he gets ready to enter his fifth decade in the business, the lessons he's learned and offers some thoughts on where value can be found off the beaten path as equity markets scream towards all-time highs.

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Financial Advisor - Emerging Markets Roar Back, Too - June 5, 2020

Kopernik CIO, David Iben, recently discussed with Financial Advisor where Kopernik is finding attractive opportunities within the emerging markets.

Read the full story here.

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Value Invest Interview (Part 1) - June 2, 2020

Kopernik CIO, David Iben, was recently interviewed by Robert Hunter from Value Invest.

Listen to the interview (Part 1) here.

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Value Invest Interview (Part 2) - June 2, 2020

Kopernik CIO, David Iben, was recently interviewed by Robert Hunter from Value Invest.

Listen to the interview (Part 2) here.

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