Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch. Biography of the legendary investor, Peter Lynch.

Peter Lynch - Superstar of Fidelity Magellan

You don't have to study stock picking for long before someone will make you familiar with the wisdom of Peter Lynch. Lynch was an early employee of Fidelty Investments and captained their major Magellan fund to some of the greatest returns ever seen in the mutual fund business. His success with stock picking was one of the prime drivers of the explosive growth of the entire mutual fund history. He managed the fund from May 1977 until May 1990. During this time he achieved an unheard of annualized return of 29%.

After his retirement as a fund manager, Lynch wrote a number of easy to understand books which helped the average investor better navigate the choppy waters of Wall Street. In these books he popularized some investing concepts which are still with us today. According to him, anyone could quite easily learn to pick stocks at least as well as the pros using common sense and easily do-able due dilligence. He recommended only investing companies that you knew intimately.

Lynch helped bridge the gap between investing and the common man. He illustrated that a common person with enough effort can learn about the operations of businesses enough to make rational investment decisions. He explained that he learned of many of hist best stock picks by first learning of the company through one of his wife's visits to the local shopping mall. If she came back raving about a great new store or restaurant he would go and see for himself. If the store was crowded and there was a "buzz" about the place, he would look further into their fundamentals to see if they merited further research.

Lynch was a fan of growth and of solid cost management. He steered away from any free spending companies and focused one the ones with the best growth record and the best fundamentals.

"Learn to Earn" and "One Up on Wall Street" are two Lynch classics that all neophyte investors should read. You will find the text easy to understand and the tips are direct and simple but pack a lot of punch. There's no doubt that Lynch's principles are widely applied by today's fund managers and by millions of grateful amateur stock pickers.