David Zorub, founder and CIO of Parsifal Capital Management, outlines his mental model for research efficiency and portfolio concentration.
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“Mediocre ideas tend to cancel each other out in the end, and they consume a lot of time and bandwidth, and so core to our process is I tell the team, don't spend any time on something that we don't think has the characteristics of becoming a large idea. Now, it may end up not being that as we move through the research process, but just by making that one simple mental adjustment of Hey, if I don't envision this having the characteristics of something that could be five to seven percent or more of the book, I'm not going to spend time on it. That behaviorally weeds out a lot of unsuitable ideas.”
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