In Covestor’s American Heroes model, manager American Values Investments (CEO Carter LeCraw pictured at left) employs a proprietary methodology to determine what companies should be considered “American Heroes.” The firm defines an American Hero as “a public company that highly reflects the American values of Integrity, Humility, Diligence and Caring.” The manager then ranks these companies and uses fundamental analysis to determine which to add to the model at that time.
On their website, American Value Investors conveys the greater mission of their portfolio:
If we are diligent about our mission, more investors will have access to our American Hero Portfolios and, therefore, direct ownership in American Hero Companies. More investment capital from a larger base of supportive, long-term shareholders leads to stronger, better and brighter American Hero Companies, which, in turn leads to a stronger, better and brighter America.
The current top holding in the model is Cognizant Technology Solutions (NASDAQ: CTSH). CTSH’s CEO Francisco D’Souza was recently named the best CEO in Institutional Investor’s The Best of Corporate America: 2011 All-America Executive Team survey. The company was also featured in a recent article by Institutional Investor (“The Best of Corporate America: 2011 All-America Executive Team,” January 2011, InstitutionalInvestor.com) where D’Souza explained the approach CTSH took during the economic downturn in 2008, when 42 percent of the company’s revenue came from financial firms:
We realized that there was a cyclical downturn going on in the economy, as well as some very significant secular changes that our customers were going through. These were deep structural changes in nearly every industry, brought about by new technologies, globalization, demographic shifts with the rise of the millennials, and more virtualized ways of working — all of which had little to do with the cyclical downturn in the economy.
CTSH was also recently featured on Bloomberg Business week’s “Hot Tech 50” list, which features the year’s ranking of the tech sector’s hot growth companies.
*Charts and prices courtesy of Yahoo Finance.
