CastleArk
Our Strategies · Four disciplines, one philosophy

With you at every inflection.

Every CastleArk strategy rests on one conviction: markets are slow to price the magnitude and durability of fundamental change. We search for gaps between company fundamentals and market expectations shaped by behavioral biases — and manage risk with discipline.

Explore the four strategies
01

Total Fund Management & OCIO

Total‑portfolio mandates · since 1999

Our disciplines, combined as one.

Offered since the firm's founding, the mandate combines CastleArk's growth equity disciplines with ETFs to build a total portfolio for each client.

The Economic Factor Model is applied at the total‑portfolio level, providing real‑time awareness of active risk. Our exposures are managed by intention rather than by accident.

How it works
  • Sector and company exposures evaluated for both return and diversification
  • A single point of accountability for investors
02

Large Cap Growth

Our flagship strategy · since 1999

Concentrated. Durable. Cash‑flow rich.

Our belief, built over decades: large‑cap businesses with meaningful franchise power tend to outperform over time. These are companies with above‑average growth in free‑cash‑flow margins — growth that gives management the ability to return capital to investors. Companies generating high returns on capital through full market cycles are often overlooked, and the market is slow to recognize them.

We aim to own those leaders early — when their growth potential is still underestimated — in a portfolio of 25–40 holdings.

What we look for
  • Leaders in businesses the market is still underestimating
  • Dominant franchise power producing durable, cash‑rich economics
  • Above‑average growth in free‑cash‑flow margins
  • Position sizes set with our proprietary risk management tools
03

Small Cap Growth

Extending the discipline · since 2007

Where mispriced change runs deepest.

A diversified portfolio of companies at a positive inflection point in their fundamentals. The portfolio holds 80–110 stocks where change is identifiable and durable — driven by new management, new products, or new strategies — and not yet fully understood by the market.

We focus on the magnitude and durability of that change, and on actual improvement versus what was merely anticipated. We account for the high failure rate among small companies through a rigorous fundamental and risk‑management process that seeks:

What we look for
  • An actual fundamental improvement, not just an anticipated one
  • Change judged by its durability rather than its absolute level
  • Diversification maintained with the Economic Factor Model
04

Energy Infrastructure

Midstream & the global energy value chain

A growth investor’s lens on energy.

Growth‑oriented investing across global energy — upstream, downstream, oilfield‑service, and energy‑infrastructure companies best positioned to enhance returns through the capital cycle.

Expressed through two disciplines: MLP (midstream infrastructure) and Global Energy. The same rate‑of‑change lens runs through both — we invest where the fundamental outlook is inflecting positively, across clean and traditional energy alike.

What we look for
  • Monitoring capital cycles for influence on short‑ and long‑term volatility
  • The rate of change in the fundamental outlook
  • A growth lens across clean and traditional energy
  • Distribution growth prioritized over yield
  • Companies positioned to enhance shareholder returns through the cycle

Composite performance, holdings, and risk statistics for each strategy are available to qualified institutions on request.

Request the materials
One Process, Four Strategies

How every strategy is run

Our tight-knit, collegial teams are generalists by design, searching across sectors and economic factors. The mandate changes; the discipline doesn't. Every portfolio follows the same path from idea to position.

01

Find the mispricing

Bottom‑up analysis in search of opportunities where expectations have diverged from the fundamentals.

02

Size the opportunity

Judge the magnitude and durability of the gap, and whether it's real or merely anticipated.

03

Manage the risk

Proprietary risk management and daily team dialogue, sizing positions against volatility and economic exposures.

04

Sell with discipline

Exit when the thesis plays out or breaks. Capital moves to the next idea.

The Economic Factor Model

Same industry. Different economics.

Example: 2022, three U.S. footwear companies — broadly similar on conventional metrics. Tap the economic factor readouts to see how we view risk.

Footwear Company AFootwear Company BFootwear Company C
Conventional profile
Market beta0.700.730.90
Growth rate4.32.23.7
Economic factor exposure  tap to reveal
Duration
Cyclicality
Inflation

Similar profiles. Different risks.
Duration, cyclicality, inflation — the exposures that shape how a company or portfolio weathers a shifting economy and are less apparent in conventional metrics.

Conventional risk saw three similar companies. The Economic Factor Model saw three very different ones — not by forecasting the economy, but by measuring each company’s exposure to it.

The full example — the names, the numbers, and how we measured it — is a conversation.

Talk to the team

Illustrative example drawn from index constituents; conventional figures rounded. Economic factor exposures reflect CastleArk’s proprietary Economic Factor Model as of the period shown and are subject to change.

From our desk in Chicago

Let's talk about your objectives.

Whichever strategy fits your goals, we'd welcome the conversation. As a 100% employee‑owned firm, we measure our success by yours.

Rooted in Chicago · Since 1999

Seated in one of the
world's great markets.

Grain futures, listed options, open outcry — Chicago was the birthplace of many of the instruments the world uses to price the future and manage risk. Our search for what the market may be missing, and the risk models we build in‑house, humbly follow that lineage.