Since the 1990s, share buybacks have surpassed dividends as the primary way S&P 500 companies return cash. Ignoring buybacks provides an incomplete picture of a company's total shareholder return, as they now constitute roughly $0.60 of every dollar returned.

A robust investment process can be distilled into four sequential questions: 1) Is it a good, durable business? 2) Are we partnering with people who have skin in the game? 3) How does it perform through a downturn? 4) What temporary issue makes it cheap?

Regal Partners uses a rigorous four-step process: 1) Valuation, 2) Macro Environment, 3) Catalyst, and 4) Edge. The final step—forcing the team to articulate what specific insight they have that the market is missing—is crucial for ensuring conviction and identifying true alpha opportunities.

Since the 1990s, U.S. companies have returned more capital through stock buybacks than dividends. An investor focused solely on dividend yield is missing the larger part of the shareholder return story and cannot accurately assess a company's total capital allocation strategy.

Companies termed "share cannibals" aggressively repurchase their own shares, especially when undervalued. This capital allocation strategy is often superior to dividends because it transfers value from sellers to long-term shareholders and acts as a high-return, low-risk investment in the company's own business.

Tim Guinness's firm uses four factors—value, quality, earnings, and momentum—to screen 8,000 stocks down to 80. While momentum is crucial for this initial filtering, it is not a primary factor in the final "last mile" decision, which is based on a deep dive into company fundamentals and valuation.

During periods of low interest rates, investors flock to dividend stocks seeking income. This concentrated buying pressure inflates their valuations relative to fundamentals. Investors who buy during these waves of high demand are purchasing at inflated prices, setting themselves up for significant underperformance when the trend inevitably reverses.

Instead of screening for quality metrics directly, filter for their effects: net cash, no goodwill, and no share issuance. It's nearly impossible for a bad business to maintain this financial profile, making it a powerful reverse-engineered filter for identifying durable, profitable companies.

A valuation multiple like P/E is not a starting point for analysis; it's the final, compressed expression of a deep understanding of a business's economics. You must "earn the right" to use a multiple by first doing the complex work of analyzing cash flows, competitive advantages, and reinvestment opportunities.