Insights

Apple's second era comes to a close - April 2026 - If Steve Jobs was a visionary, conjuring products that consumers didn’t know they needed but soon couldn’t live without, Tim Cook was an operator, tasked with optimizing the production of those goods and ensuring that they were as profitable as they were appealing. During his time as Apple CEO, Cook more than succeeded in his designated role, which helped to drive the company’s market capitalization from about $350 billion in 2011 to more than $4 trillion today. That said, it’s not as though innovation was abandoned over the past decade and a half, with products such as the Apple Watch and AirPods introduced during the period. As well, it was under Cook’s guidance that the company introduced a services ecosystem — including the App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple Pay — which now brings in $100 billion in annual revenue and operates at a 75% gross margin.

Private Assets: when the illiquidity feature becomes a bug - March 2026 - Over the past several years, capital has poured into private equity and debt funds as investors sought diversification from their public holdings and the chance to capture outsized returns in the process. Unlike public securities, which are priced every day in the open market, the assets underlying private vehicles are valued relatively infrequently. Institutional investors were attracted to this characteristic because it allowed them to show a stable return profile to their constituents and individuals liked it because it provided the appearance of immunity to market plunges like the covid crisis or the bear market of 2022.

Cannibalistic Tendencies - February 2026 - Along with stock valuation and management strength, cash flow generation sits at the foundation of DM’s equity investment approach. Companies that are left with extra capital after covering operating expenses have choices to make, and much of our work is geared toward understanding what management plans to do with excess funds. In our analytical framework, a company may pursue a growth-oriented tack — either by redeploying capital back into the business or using it to acquire competitors or complementary enterprises — or it may decide to distribute it to shareholders through dividend increases or share buybacks.

Whether you are (or were) a Venezuelan politico, a software engineer, or anyone who relies on the safe passage of hydrocarbons through a narrow channel in the Persian Gulf, the first quarter of 2026 was one of grave consequence. For investors, the implications of recent weeks and what might lie ahead undoubtedly seem just as harrowing.

Every investing year is interesting in its own way, but 2025 provided a decidedly distinct waypost to mark DM’s first quarter century in business. The inaugural year of a US presidential term is typically strong for stocks but, as we learned during its first go around, this administration doesn’t often lend itself to historical comparison. In fact, it seemed that any chance at a favourable start was dashed in early April when a nuclear scale tariff bomb was dropped on the world and, once investors calculated what this punishing levy would do to global commerce, the S&P 500 quickly shed a fifth of its value.

Prior to the US election and in the weeks leading up to inauguration, Donald Trump repeated both his affection for tariffs and his plan to deport millions of undocumented and, presumably, low wage foreign workers.