Inferential Focus’s first clients were institutional investors, and a large number of professional investor clients rely on the intelligence we deliver to provide an edge in their decision making process, be it the venture private equity client or the portfolio manager. Once we have reviewed a new dynamic that we are seeing, we work with clients to identify companies involved in the effects of the dynamic and, help them explore its impacts on the industry, competitors, and all stakeholders. Our research covers a range of global cross-disciplinary topics, filtering out the "noise" of insignificant changes and identifying major changes with investment implications.

Several times a month, we flag new situations or major turning points for our investor clients, keeping clients aware of changes and their implications as we see them.

Over the years, we have observed that the global forces of change have a significant impact on the fortunes of companies (or industries) and that the impact of these forces is translated in a timely manner into a company’s share price. We have documented this phenomenon by tracing various changes that our research has discovered and the subsequent effect on companies in a wide variety of industries. We have dubbed this powerful effect the "Change Wave."

The Change Wave has an investment impact. By identifying change early, we learned, one can find appropriate investment vehicles and ride the wave upward, when the change’s impact becomes more apparent and other investors euphorically bid up prices. Conversely, and probably more important, identifying a Change Wave peak allows an investor to avoid the wave’s "wipe out" phase by exiting investments before price depreciation occurs, and in selected situations, riding share prices down by shorting those companies.

To demonstrate the potential of early change detection, we decided to put money behind our Change Wave approach and established our own portfolio in July 1998. We invested for approximately three years, relying exclusively on the Change Wave strategy without company analysis or management "guidance." The results are in and we believe they speak for themselves. Without the normal component of company analysis or the use of dividend reinvestment, we accomplished a 33-month capital gain of 51.7% for the portfolio, compared to a gain of 2.25% in the S & P 500, a gain of 4.77% in the Russell 2000 and a loss of 2.76% in the NASDAQ. Go to Investment Portfolio Results for a detailed view of our investment strategy.