Standout companies rarely march ever upward in a consistent, straight line. It’s when they’re off track that Kovitz’s interest tends to be piqued.

While most of its $4.8 billion in assets under management are in long equity strategies, Kovitz has proven quite adept on the short side as well. Case in point: following the same strategy as a private fund launched in 1998 by founder Mitchell Kovitz, the firm since the start of 2016 has run a publicly-available mutual fund, the Absolute Capital Opportunities Fund [CAPOX], which has earned through August 31, 2019 a net annualized 6.4%, vs. 1.8% for the HFRX Equity Hedge Index.

At a time when hedging one's bets is likely on value investors' minds, Kovitz and team describe how they're positioning themselves short and long, including opportunities for upside they see today in such areas as basic apparel, Internet services, animal health and infrastructure contracting.

Read the full interview.