People
Wynn Quon is founder and chief investment analyst at Legado Associates.
He has over twenty years of experience in software development, telecoms and high-technology project management. He was Director of R&D, and then Chief Engineer for Mitel Corporation before starting Legado Associates in 2001. Wynn holds a B.Sc (Hon) summa cum laude in Computer Science and an M.B.A (1994) specializing in finance and technology management from the University of Ottawa.
He has been involved with investing in some form for two decades. Wynn focuses on two areas - technology and special situations. His technical expertise supplies him with an insider perspective to the tech world. In terms of special situations, he uses behavioral finance principles to help identify and exploit valuation anomalies.
He has served on the Board of Directors of Desjardins Credit Union and is a reserve Director for the Ottawa Public Library.
Wynn has written for a variety of newspapers and magazines including the National Post, National Post Business, the Globe and Mail's Globeinvestor.com, MoneySense, Reader's Digest and has made media appearances on CBC.
Successes
Investing is tough. So when we get something right, we're pleased. We called the Y2K crisis on the nose. We predicted the dot-com crash in January 2000, two months early. We also picked the right time to buy telecom stocks after the bust in that sector as well.
Some of our best stock picks are a matter of public record in the High-Tech Portfolio chronicled in the Canadian MoneySaver.
We've also done well predicting company flameouts. We predicted the downfall of the internet telephony company, Alphanet Telecom; andsatellite communications outfit, Tee-Comm Electronics in the late 90s. We also foresaw the self-immolation of Linux wannabe, SCO, in 2003 and pharmaceutical company Telik Inc in 2006.
In a sidetrip through the banking sector we correctly anticipated the dramatic collapse of American mortgage giant, Countrywide Financial in 2007-08.
Failures
One notable failure: Nortel Networks. We didn't buy it at its peak (thank goodness) but we still ended up with a loss of 52% after buying it at $40 and selling it at $18.90. As well, a bet on Nortel's preferred shares (thinking that the government would step in with a bailout) utterly misfired.
One failure that unfortunately turned into a dramatic success was the prediction in 2006 of the implosion of the real estate bubble in the U.S. We were too early in forecasting a steep stock market decline that would take the Dow down by 50% or more. But as it turned out, the market crash did indeed materialize as we predicted.
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