Our focused, research-centric investment process leads to the early identification of rapidly growing companies in the expansionary phase of their lifecycle, leading to long-term excess returns for our clients.

The buy decision will be made upon understanding a company's vision and business plan; our assessment of management's ability to execute the plan; our assessment of the markets response for such a product and or service; coupled with strong fundamentals and a keen and distinguishable competitive advantage. In general, OAM looks to invest in companies that meet the eight criteria of The Oberweis Octagon.

Rapid Revenue Growth - We look for rapid consistent growth in revenues of 30% or more for micro/small-cap companies. Ideally, growth should be internally generated, rather than as a result of acquisitions.

Rapid Earnings Growth - Sales or revenue growth must also produce profit growth. We look for similar consistent rapid growth in pre-tax income and earnings per share- a minimum of 30% is required to be a candidate for our micro/small-cap portfolio.

Low Relative Price/Earnings Ratios - Generally, we look for companies that are selling at price/earnings ratios of less than 50% of their growth rate based on the current price and estimated earnings for the next 12 months.

Substantial Future Growth Potential - We focus on companies with products or services that offer the opportunity for substantial future growth.

Early Stages of Earnings Acceleration - We identify companies that are in the early stages of earnings acceleration - where the price may rise not only as a result of rapidly growing earnings, but also because of the price/earnings multiple expansion.

Low Price to Sales Ratios - We look at what the whole company might sell for in relation to the company's sales and compare that to its price/sales ratio.

Quality of Earnings - We carefully review a company's financial statements, paying particular attention to footnotes, in an attempt to identify unusual items that may indicate future problems. We also pay particular attention to the quality (i.e. conservatism) of a company's reported earnings and future earnings guidance.

Upper Quartile Relative Strength - We don't try to "fight City Hall." We typically buy companies with stocks that have outperformed at least 75% of other stocks in the market over the preceding 12 months.

Once an issue has been selected for purchase, OAM tends to passively accumulate shares for client accounts, generally over a period of days. OAM is very cognizant of the potential adverse effects of transactions costs. Accordingly, OAM attempts to buy on the bid side of a trading spread and sell toward the offer side. OAM generally aggregates institutional client accounts and allocates an average price to each account. OAM uses electronic trading networks (ECNs) for the majority of its trading volume to keep transaction costs low. Commissions average $.02/share.

In an effort to comb through the vast amount of companies that meet OAM's capitalization constraints we employ eight qualitative and quantitative guidelines called The Oberweis Octagon, OAM's structured and disciplined approach used to identify a smaller subset of investment candidates. We screen the Bloomberg, Baseline, and Wanda universe of over 14,000 unique companies for companies that meet our quantitative requirements. Only about 500 remain once we have culled the universe of companies for Revenue Growth and Earnings Growth.

Given the absence of analyst coverage and size of the companies in which we tend to invest, we take great care in understanding the factors underlying earnings and revenue growth of prospective investments to ensure that these figures will be both recurring and growing. OAM's portfolio management team evaluates each company, using primary information sources like 10K's, 10Q's, company business plans, press releases, conference calls, management interviews, and industry ratings. This information is then used to assess the company's continued growth prospects, market potential, and stock valuation relative to the company's rate of growth. This vital information is also utilized to establish apples-to-apples comparisons for similar investment opportunities. OAM monitors earnings reports on a daily basis, continually searching for companies reporting revenue and earnings growth of 30% or more.

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