Have you missed the boat on growth? Paul Black says no

Q: Given the strong performance of WCM’s Select Global Growth strategy over the past three years, some investors ask if they have missed their opportunity?

Paul Black: So have they missed the boat? And the truth of the matter is, if you actually have any kind of normal time horizon for investing in equities, the entry point virtually means nothing.

There have been a lot of studies that show if you bought at the top of the market or the bottom of the market, you know, each year for 10 years or 15 years, your results over a 10 or 15 year period of time are not significantly different¹. It might be basis points.

So I would never let excellent performance in an asset class or a strategy stop me from investing as long as what we're doing fits within your overall plan. There's just too many opportunities for us to pivot the portfolio away. And the interesting thing is people look at the portfolio in terms of how it performed this year. Our portfolio is only selling at 15 times forward earnings², 15 times. That is ridiculously low. At the end of 2021, the same portfolio was selling at 60 times forward earnings.

So actually the overall valuation of the portfolio over a four-year pull has come down significantly. So valuations are great, growth rates, we believe are going to be sustainable. And again, if your pull is long enough, five, 10, 15 years, then the entry point doesn't matter.

¹ Sources: WCM; Schwab ‘Does market timing work?’, July 2025; Capital Group ‘Time not timing is what matters’
² WCM as of 31 March, 2026