Wynn Quon is founder and chief investment analyst at Legado Associates.
With over twenty years of hands-on experience in software development, telecoms and high-technology project management, Wynn brings a unique and essential insider perspective to the high-tech investing challenge. He has put this to good use through two decades of successful stock market investment. He was Director of R&D, and then Chief Engineer for Mitel Corporation before starting his own company 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.
Wynn also writes for a variety of newspapers and magazines including the National Post, National Post Business, MoneySense and Reader's Digest and has made media appearances on CBC.
Successes
High-tech investing is pretty 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 we manage in the Canadian MoneySaver. These include Corning (bought at $4.56, sold at $23.45; Texas Instruments (bought at $16.68 sold at $33.09), Analog Devices (bought at $11.65, sold at $37.72), Cisco Systems bought at $14.88 sold at $31.39.
We've also done well predicting company flameouts. We predicted the downfall of such Canadian tech companies as Alphanet Telecom and Tee-Comm Electronics. And the ongoing self-immolation of companies like SCO and pharmaceutical company Telik Inc. Recently, in a sidetrip into the banking industry we nailed the dramatic collapse of Countrywide Financial that happened in 2007-08..
Failures
Ermmmm, none! Oh, all right. We had one flub in 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. Oh and there's also the tricky bit where we keep predicting that we're in for another dramatic bear market. Back in 2006 we predicted the implosion of the real estate bubble but we were too early in forecasting a steep stock market decline that would take the Dow down by 50% or more. It hasn't materialized yet but the odds unfortunately are increasing daily.
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