Peter Gellman is the Managing Member of Palmerston Group Advisors, L.L.C. Founded in 1997, Palmerston Group provides fee-only financial and investment management services based on fundamental analysis and margin of safety principles. Palmerston’s approach to planning and wealth management is a blend of financial strategy, investment philosophy, and risk management. At the core of this approach is the conviction that preserving and building wealth is best achieved through a process of careful research and investigation in which Palmerston Group seeks both to identify marketable securities trading at a discount to intrinsic value and to allocate clients’ capital with other investment managers (through mutual funds and managed accounts) who do the same. Please contact Palmerston.


A short note from Peter Gellman, founder of Palmerston Group Advisors, L.L.C.:
I came to investment and financial counseling from a career teaching international politics and history. And while the two fields are very different, there are a few interesting commonalities. Great leaders excel at determining which details are critical and which are ephemeral, and if and how and when general principles ought to be applied in unique circumstances. Statesmanship is about analyzing the meaningful rather the measurable; it’s about seeking insight rather than just information.

Investing is similar, with the best managers able to retrieve the essential elements of a company’s prospects from the ocean of information produced by and about that company. (See more in the Margin of Safety section of the website). These managers and their services should be considered when creating a financial strategy.

Second, successful political leaders operate with an awareness of the gap that can arise between the true nature of a situation and popular opinion about that situation. President Franklin Roosevelt actively prepared the United States government for war during the late thirties, despite a pre-Pearl Harbor climate of isolationist opinion that was skeptical and sometimes hostile to the prospect of American military involvement abroad. Only after December 7, 1941 did Roosevelt’s foresight become widely apparent.

Similar gaps between reality and the market’s opinion about value also happen. Whether there is too much optimism (Enron in 1999) or too much gloom (Citicorp in 1990), conventional market opinion qua pricing can be well off the mark.

Finally, both fields offer numerous cautionary tales about overconfidence and especially about the importance of being aware of one’s own ignorance. Trying to identify what you don’t know is a critical part of managing risk in politics and investing. And investing at least has the advantage of letting an opportunity pass when the unknowns are significant. As Warren Buffet has said, there are no called strikes.

Please surf around the Palmerston Group site to get a better sense of our approach and services, and feel free to contact us.


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