Globalization demands that businesses compete internationally, prompting governments to seek to fund infrastructure projects as a means of driving economic growth. The Kensington Global Infrastructure Fund is designed to take advantage of these trends. Portfolio manager Aaron Visse seeks total return from both capital appreciation and current income through investing in a portfolio of global infrastructure-related securities.

In today’s markets, forward-looking business analysis can reward an equity investor. The investment approach of Westport fund manager Edmund H. Nicklin, Jr. depends on the dynamics of an event-driven, earnings-focused strategy to identify companies that are selling at an attractive discount relative to their potential within a two-year investment horizon. The “event” is responsible for creating either the valuation discount or the catalyst to remove an existing discount.

ICON believes the news, the theories, and all the noise in the market can lead only to emotions and beliefs that distort the true worth of a company or an industry. That’s why Todd Burchett, the manager of the ICON Long/Short Fund, focuses on the results of the fund’s quantitative system in an effort to spot market opportunities presented by investors’ emotional responses to news and current events.

What can be a simpler yet more powerful strategy than to invest in 50 of the “best of breed” S&P 500 Index stocks that have had both consistent historical earnings and consistently outperformed the index? Everest America Fund manager Curt Van Hill and his team have been following this elegant strategy successfully, where consistency is the keyword. This strategy also helps to ensure low operating costs.

While many global funds scour the world to find the best companies in their countries, the Harding Loevner Global Equity Fund has quite a different strategy. In an increasingly global economy, the fund looks for companies with competitive advantage across global sectors. A well-defined research process and a long-term investment horizon help the fund keep its focus on quality names with durable growth.

According to the investment philosophy of the Vice Fund there are four major sectors that tend to be defensive in nature and immune to macro economic events and they are Tobacco, Alcoholic Beverages, Gaming and Aerospace Defense. Taking advantage of this fact, portfolio manager Charles Norton is looking for the best opportunities within both domestic and international companies in these sectors to diversify away from the U.S. economy.

In the dynamic world of stock market investing the Utopia Funds take an active approach and look for opportunities everywhere. The four funds, Growth, Core, Core Conservative and Yield Income, invest globally in a combination of stocks and bonds seeking long-term positive total return, independent of the market environment. The Growth Fund is designed for the investor with the most comfort with volatility and the longest time horizon.

No one knows where the winners of tomorrow are likely to come from. However, Michael Willis, lead portfolio manager of Giant 5 Funds’ Total Investment System believes there are five essential themes on which people, the world over, will spend irrespective of market conditions and therefore, a diversified investment strategy and asset allocation that encompasses wider asset classes beyond stocks and bonds, are the keys to performance

It takes a great deal of ingenuity and patience to pick contrarian stocks with the belief that they will offer potential high returns over time. Croft Value Fund managers Russell and Kent Croft, and their staff of 5 analysts believe in such a commitment and follow a disciplined, multi-step process to get the best ideas for picking shunned or beaten down stocks for their portfolio.