Biography

Mr. B. Clark Stamper, our Chief Investment Officer and President, has a very broad base of experience in the fixed-income markets. He has been an institutional portfolio manager of several different fixed-income asset classes since 1984. He learned the business while restructuring distressed portfolios that he helped bring back to life. It is because he has seen "what can go wrong" that he has a profound respect for downside protection. His reputation over the last ten years is for managing fixed-income portfolios that have (in the past) achieved the highest levels of risk-adjusted performance (please see our Performance Link and our Awards Link for up-to-date information; also, please see our Disclaimer Link, bottom left, for information about risks and returns.).

He has been an institutional portfolio manager in several fixed-income categories: U.S. Treasuries, mortgaged-backed securities, high yield taxable corporate bonds, and high yield and high grade tax-free municipal bonds.

Mr. Stamper is currently the portfolio manager of an open-end high yield tax-free municipal bond fund and several private accounts.  The Fund has had the highest risk-adjusted performance ratings from Morningstar, the well known independent mutual fund rater - please see our Performance Link and our Awards Link for up-to-date information.

Mr. Stamper has a profound respect for downside protection and a distaste for overheated financial markets.

He began his portfolio management career in 1985 as the manager of the liquidity portfolio (U.S. Treasuries of five years and less) and mortgaged-backed securities portfolio of Far West Savings & Loan in Newport Beach, California. It was in this capacity that he was first exposed to "what can go wrong." He saw "risk-controlled arbitrage" (mortgage-backed securities hedged with futures) blow up and bankrupt many savings and loans in early 1987. He recounts that the most knowledgeable and well known "rocket scientists" from the major investment bankers explained that their "hedge ratios" did not work as planned because prepayments of mortgages came in faster than anytime in history and than anyone on Wall Street had expected.

Next, in early 1987 he became a high yield, junk bond credit analyst. He helped restructure the Far West's junk bond portfolio that had been built during the early days of the junk bond market. Following through on that experience, he helped restructure a similar junk bond portfolio owned by ABQ Bank in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In mid-1989,  at the start of the junk market meltdown, he was hired to restructure one of the worst performing junk bond mutual funds of the 1980's, the National Bond Fund in Greenwich, Connecticut. Then, in mid-1990, he moved to Santa Fe, NM to restructure Venture Income (+) Plus), which had problems typical of junk bond funds at that time. Reviewing the wide variety of problem corporate credits in these portfolios gave Mr. Stamper additional insight into the importance of downside protection especially in highly leveraged situations.  Mr. Stamper managed that high yield junk taxable bond fund for over eight years through mid-1998.

In mid-1990, he also became portfolio manager of Venture Muni (+) Plus (which has since been renamed and he still manages), and a U.S. Treasury/Mortgaged-Backed Securities Fund, which he managed for over five years. In the mortgage-backed area he was again able to view swift downside loss, this time it was mortgage derivative securities that dropped precipitously in price from 1993 to 1994.

Mr. Stamper founded Stamper Capital & Investments in October 1995 to maximize the risk-adjusted performance of fixed-income accounts for mutual funds, institutions, and high net worth individuals.

Mr. Stamper earned his M.B.A. and B.S. in Finance at San Diego State University.

 Bruce Clark Stamper, Bruce Stamper