Gnostic Capital Management

Gnostic Capital is the family investment office of
Randolph McDuff

In 2008, the Forbes Magazine article entitled “The World’s Best Investor Doesn’t Live in Omaha” declared Randolph to be “the Best Stock Picker the World Has Never Heard of” and named him “The Oracle of Manitoba”.

Since that time, McDuff has continued to evolve as an investor, enhancing his reputation within the sphere of the ultra-wealthy, all the while maintaining an exceptionally low profile.

McDuff posits world class investments to be scarce.

With an understanding that the untangling of skill and context is something a computer cannot yet do, Randolph unites fundamental research, empirical data and meaningful global insights to facilitate the building of his portfolio.

In his view, the correct identification of such equities is, accordingly, far more critical to wealth building than market timing.

McDuff refutes the notion that one must engage in frenetic transactions to generate absolute or relative outperformance vs indexes and deems the trading obsession to be purely self-serving; generating significant recurring revenue for the investment industry, on the backs of a pliant public.

The investment approach employed at Gnostic is the diametric opposite of modern trading and is described as “ultra-low turn” active management, with multiple years reporting portfolio turn of zero (other than dividend reinvestment).

Results produced from the ultra-low turn, actively managed, global large cap portfolio, in the past quarter century, have fully validated the supposition that trading hinders capital compounding.

Portfolio compounding from the selective acquisition of “set-and-forget” secular themed investments has placed Randolph’s work into a very minute list of investors worldwide, based on return.

In the past, McDuff’s prescient thoughts were featured in a variety of global financial media including Forbes, Nasdaq.com, US World News & Reports and The Globe and Mail, among others.

More recently, to prevent the risk of “cult-of-personality” frontrunning that either plagues active managers, buoys quarterly returns or is misinterpreted/misstated in social media, Randolph, prudently, has elected to eschew any/all promotional media interviews.