Peter Lynch
The Legendary Investment Fund Manager

Peter Lynch was a legendary fund manager and a self-made millionaire himself and at the same time making his clients richer. You see, his fund (Fidelity’s Magellan Fund) grew to US $34 billion from US $20 billion in 14 years with over one million share holders. Retired from directly managing client funds, he now serves as an investment mentor to many investment managers in this field.

His fame and success as a millionaire master investor propelled him to worldwide success in the early 1990s, so much so that many books were written about him. Peter Lynch, One Up on Wall Street, the book, claimed that the Magellan Fund rose over 2,700% and was the best performing fund in the world at that time.

What is so special about Peter Lynch? What can we learn from him?

It is a worthwhile to know and understand about his younger days and how he was exposed to investment. His father died when Lynch was very young and both he and his mother were left with difficult times ahead. As such, Lynch did not get the usual good life that some of our children in today’s world have.

Peter Lynch began hearing about the stock market at a tender age while working as a golf caddy. A quick and patient learner, Lynch inadvertently eavesdropped, to his advantage, on the discussions between golfing businessmen who had a good knowledge of investment. Lynch went about and did further research and invested in the stock market which resulted in him making some money for himself.

Having a strong, disciplined and proud personality, the youthful Lynch did not waste his time and winnings on lavish materials. Instead he invested into a university education and later found his first job with a investment company called Fidelity. As hard working and disciplined as he was, Lynch’s work would begin even before he got to the office. He would fill the time to and fro work, be it in the train or car, reading reports and stock recommendation.

His famous investing techniques are in his insistence on never assuming anything. He would verify all facts himself and insisted in firsthand contact with his source. He never realize on hearsay or rumor. As Lynch has made his investments purely on his own research, paying little or no attention to the success stories of other investment brokers, he earned the respect and admiration of the investment broker community for his business acumen.

Lynch knew that he could not possibly know about everything in the market. So he leveraged on knowledge-pooling amongst his peers through the loose of formal alliances of his investment network, where he swapped profitable investment ideas with them.

Lynch believes the smarter investors get, the more ignorant they become. The smarter investors often believe they can become hyper performers which can then lead them to becoming a self-centered, subjective and domineering personality, their ego gets in their way of making good investment decision.

As such, a good investor should have a balance, calm, modest, and unassuming approach to both life and investing, like Peter Lynch. His successful investing habits have made Lynch what he is today. With over 32 years of investing experience, Lynch would seek for opportunity abd very discipline only to invest in areas that he knows firsthand.

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