One of Seeking Alpha's most prolific authors, Bret Jensen (aka The Insiders Forum), sits down with SA's Jonathan Liss to discuss his unique approach to investing. Particularly when company insiders are buying up their own shares en masse, Jensen starts to dig deeper, developing a thesis for the stock. It's a strategy that has routinely delivered out-sized returns over the years, as demonstrated by the strong performance of his SA Marketplace service, The Insiders Forum.
Topics covered:
2:15 - Bret's backstory: Going from corporate America to Wall Street 5:30 - Bret discusses his admiration for famed mutual fund manager Peter Lynch 6:50 - On the benefits of covering small and mid cap stocks that are undercovered by Wall Street analysts 8:30 - Bret's portfolio selection process broken down: Finding undervalued stocks insiders are buying 10:40 - On keeping a longer-term investing horizon and not trying to time the market 12:50 - Bret's single-stock research process broken down 14:55 - Bret's biggest lesson from 35 years of investing success (and failures): nothing trumps proper diversification. Thus, he never holds more than 5% in a single position - or holds too many positions with the same broad sector exposure (i.e. too many energy sector stocks) 19:25 - Bret makes the macro case for his two current favorite sectors: biotech and housing 26:25 - Bret makes the case for his least favorite sector: retail, particularly brick and mortar 28:30 - Bret weighs in on the current state of the financial sector: neutral on the larger banks but long some of the smaller regional names 30:40 - The current macroeconomic environment and risk on/risk off weightings within The Insiders Forum portfolio 34:05 - Bret's individual stock picks: 34:30 - The case for Beazer Homes USA (BZH) 35:50 - The case for Entercom Communications Corporation (ETM) 37:10 - The case for Gulfport Energy Corporation (GPOR) 38:40 - The case for Iovance Biotherapeutics (IOVA) 40:35 - More on how Bret uses insider buying as a primary metric to identify potential long opportunities 42:40 - On the importance of being an "investor" and not a trader