Small-cap investing requires a hands on approach and to do this internationally demands an investment process that is scalable. Epoch International Small Cap Fund seeks long-term capital appreciation by investing at least 80% of its assets in small-cap companies outside of the U.S. Incorporating a top-down thematic approach with fundamental bottom-up stock analysis, Daniel Geber, portfolio manager, aims to offer a differentiated investment process in small-cap investing.

It is a general belief that you cannot have an advantage in the well researched large-cap space. Yet, Bob Markman, the manager of the Markman Core Growth Fund, believes that his style of large-caps investing provides ample opportunities for outperformance. Running a focused portfolio of 35 stocks, Markman has shown an ability to create value by selecting the companies ‘at the top of the food chain’ and trading around those positions when opportunities arise.

The combination of expected growth and attractive price is lucrative to any investor. Bjurman Barry Associates has developed a quantitative model to screen stocks that reflect this investment profile. Patrick Bradford, portfolio manager of the Bjurman Barry Mid Cap Growth fund, relies on fundamental judgement to construct a diversified portfolio of 70 mid-cap growth stocks.

With the premise that the market can misprice stocks, Todd Burchett, the manager of the ICON Telecommunication & Utilities Fund, relies on a quantitative system to value stocks. The non-emotional system calculates value-to-price ratios and points to the industries that the system identifies as being on sale and can potentially lead the market.

For Jeffrey Knight, portfolio leader of the Putnam Global Asset Allocation Growth Fund, active management means top-down allocation across asset classes, countries, sizes, and sectors, as well as a bottom-up approach within each category. With more than 2,000 holdings, the fund’s goal is to achieve the right balance of the diversified holdings. Emphasizing the collective characteristics of the holdings, the fund relies on quantitative research for all the decisions.

The negative consensus among investors and analysts on troubled companies only provokes the interest of Sergio Marcheli, one of the portfolio managers of the Van Kampen American Value Fund. But the final ‘buy’ decisions are taken based on in-depth fundamental analysis, assessment of the management and its chances to turn the company around, and the mandatory presence of a positive catalyst. That strategy aims to discover the success stories before everyone else on the Street.

The ThomasLloyd OPTI-flex Fund is a fund of funds that utilizes an opportunistic approach by investing in mutual funds in various asset classes, investment styles, market capitalizations, and in funds that leverage or short the markets. As a result, Portfolio Manager Jeff Unterreiner believes that the fund is adequately diversified to be a life-time investment that should outperform through a full market cycle.

The emerging markets are dynamic places that require the double effort of getting to know them and staying on top of the fast changing societies. John Connor, the manager of the Third Millennium Russia Fund, believes that the Russian market no longer offers cheap stocks associated with high risk. Rather, he sees opportunities for participating in the high growth and domestically financed growth of a relatively stable market.

Wall Street and the private market may differ substantially in their valuations of a business, and that’s an opportunity for the Boyar Value Fund. The fund aims to buy businesses at a significant discount to their intrinsic value with the idea that, over time, the market will value them appropriately, or they will be acquired. Relying on in-depth fundamental research, the manager Mark Boyar runs a concentrated portfolio with very low turnover.