Elections and the winds of war don't faze this fund manager.

• Author: Skiles, Wes
• Position: Attitude at Altitude - ICON Advisors Inc.

AS THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE SPEEDS toward its November conclusion, we can expect to hear more, more and more about the economy and where it's headed. Analysts will speculate on the direction the stock market will take depending on who occupies the White House--and the war in Iraq will only complicate speculation.

But out in Greenwood Village, at least one money manager will simply ignore electioneering as it relates to the market and, instead, rely upon a trusty formula.

Craig Callahan, president and chief investment officer of ICON Advisors Inc., is a follower of Benjamin Graham, who is known as the father of securities analysis and who has laid out the principles of value-oriented investment.

Like most Graham disciples, Callahan ignores brokers' advice and never attends company PR functions or meets corporate executives face-to-face. What's more, he disregards traditional value measurements like P/E ratios and price-to-book or price-to-sales ratios.

"Those are handy formulas, but they don't consider all fundamentals of finance, like interest rates," says Callahan, who was a finance professor at the University of Denver until 1985, when he decided to follow in his parents' footsteps and start his own business.

He and Michael Hart co-founded Meridian Asset Management, the forerunner to ICON Advisers. Callahan bought out Hart in 1997 and opened nine funds. The company changed its name to ICON in January this year.

Callahan has always used a method of investment based on Graham's value-oriented strategy. "We don't want other people's stories; we want numbers," said Callahan, who was once described by Forbes writer Christopher Helman as "a hybrid market-timer and value-investor." Callahan thinks his formula for value sets ICON apart from other value funds.

"We think we're doing value correct, and most people are doing it wrong," he said.

So what's wrong with how other investors value companies? "They take a 'top down' approach," said Callahan. Events in Iraq, elections, news, oil prices--all work to affect market value in the "top down" approach.

ICON is a "bottom up," or quantitative firm, that looks for bargains among stocks whose intrinsic value isn't...