Founded in 2007, AlphaNorth Asset Management ("AlphaNorth") is a Toronto based investment manager.
AlphaNorth believes that superior long term equity returns are achievable by exploiting inefficiencies
in the Canadian small cap universe through careful security selection on both a long and short basis.
The firm combines technical analysis with both a bottom-up and top-down strategy in the selection of
investments offering the best reward versus risk opportunities. AlphaNorth manages the AlphaNorth
Partners Fund which is a long biased small cap focused hedge fund. AlphaNorth also manages the
AlphaNorth 2010 Flow-Through LP, the AlphaNorth 2011 Flow-Through LP, the AlphaNorth
Growth Fund, an open-ended mutual fund, and most recently the AlphaNorth 2012 Flow-Through LP.
The Fund's objective is to achieve industry leading long term returns.
"Despite much caution and speculation by the pessimists in the media about a
double dip recession as well as obscure fringe concepts such as Hindenburg
omens and the media's predictions that the September/October timeframe was
going to be a difficult period for equities, the US equity market, as
measured by the S&P 500 index, had the best September return since 1939.
This was the case despite the rants and words of caution by bearish
commentators. Although some of these commentators successfully called the
"meltdown in 2008", albeit with a long lead time, many have remained
negative despite the fact that the equity market has now almost recovered
its entire decline since the Lehman bankruptcy induced meltdown in the Fall
of 2008. It is of little benefit to investors for commentators to correctly
predict a decline but then fail to turn positive at any point of the
subsequent rally which has seen equity returns of 74% for the S&P and
115% for the TSX Composite off of the bottom reached less than two years ago.
We reiterate our comment from previous commentaries that it is our belief
that equities will continue to show surprising strength to many investors.
It is interesting to note that very strong Septembers have been associated
with excellent returns over the balance of the year. It is our prediction
that this will likely be the case in 2010."
September 2010 Fund Commentary
"We are more actively researching short opportunities and
have tightened the criteria for long investments in anticipation of a less
favourable equity market environment over the summer months."
February 2010 Fund Commentary
"As we noted in our October 2008 commentary, 'the markets formed a classic
panic low in October'. If it were not for tax loss selling issues, Canadian
small cap stocks would likely have held their October lows, but as it turned
out the final low was made on December 5th for the TSX Venture index. "
"…history has demonstrated once again, it is generally
unwise to sell equities at times of extreme fear and panic."
"…when the pendulum swings the other way, significant
gains can be quick and euphoric."
"As we indicated in
our last monthly commentary, we noted that a significant market low was near.
It appears that this occurred in October as markets formed a classic panic
low. This sets the stage for a return to fundamentals, normal levels of
volatility and possibly, a significant rally."
October 2008 Fund Commentary
We continue to hold a
bearish view on equity markets, particularly in view of the recent powerful
rally. We believe that equity investors continue to be overly optimistic
about the economy and the severity of credit conditions in the U.S. which we
believe will ultimately have a negative impact on Canadian markets. We are
maintaining our cautious positioning in the near term in anticipation of
deteriorating equity markets.
March 2008 Fund Commentary