Unlike growth investors who specialize in only certain industries in search of growth, Kalmar Investments applies a consciously more wide-ranging approach to identify companies with sustainable earnings growth. Ford B. Draper Jr., portfolio manager of the Kalmar “Growth-with-Value” Small Cap Fund, and his 9-person research team primarily use the firm’s internal resources to identify growth businesses at an early stage with a clear multi-year timeframe in their assessment.

The search for value is always difficult, but in a crisis environment, it can be a real challenge. For Thomas Schuessler, the manager of DWS Large Cap Value Fund, the analysis of various bottomup metrics is only part of the process. The macro perspective on sectors and themes, the outside view from Frankfurt on the U.S. economy, combined with portfolio diversification and a stringent sell discipline, are key for avoiding value traps and for positioning the portfolio appropriately.

In the world of investment, the efficiency of even the most elaborate models is often based on surprisingly simple truths. Harnessing the idea of making money where it is to be found, David O’Leary has organized his investment strategy around a proprietary money flow measure to generate alpha for the PowerShares Active AlphaQ (PQY) and the PowerShares Active Alpha Multi Cap (PQZ) ETF portfolios.

Only a couple of years ago, investing in commodities was a complicated matter involving a futures account or an indirect approach through equities. Invesco PowerShares and Deutsche Bank now provide a more efficient access to an area that’s not correlated to equities. Investors can choose between diversified, leveraged, or inverse exposure, depending on their view, or lack of such, in each of the major commodity sectors.