Excerpts from Sequoia Fund Second Quarter Commentary
Sequoia Fund’s investment objective is long-term growth of capital. In pursuing this objective the Fund focuses on investing in equity securities that it believes are undervalued at the time of purchase and have the potential for growth. A guiding principle is the consideration of equity securities, such as common stock, as units of ownership of a business and the purchase of them when the price appears low in relation to the value of the total enterprise. The balance sheet and earnings history and prospects of each company are extensively studied to appraise fundamental value. Sequoia Fund typically sells the equity security of a company when the company shows deteriorating fundamentals, its earnings progress falls short of the investment adviser’s expectations or its valuation appears excessive relative to its expected future earnings.
We believe it is futile to try to predict the direction of the stock market from year to year. Rather than try to guess what might happen next, we think it more prudent to own a portfolio of market-leading companies that earn high returns on capital, boast strong balance sheets and self-fund their growth. We try to invest alongside motivated and ethical management teams and to identify businesses with many years of growth ahead of them. We try to buy these businesses carefully, taking advantage of occasional periods when their stocks seem to be mispriced. Though it contradicts academic theory, we believe a concentrated portfolio of businesses that has been intensively researched and carefully purchased will generate higher returns with less risk over time than a diverse basket of stocks chosen with less care. However, a concentrated portfolio may deliver results in an individual year that do not correspond closely to the returns generated by the broader market.
