Sir John Templeton’s Maxims
January 9, 2013 Leave a comment
1.For all long-term investors, there is only one objective – “maximum total real return after taxes.”
2.Achieving a good record takes much study and work, and is a lot harder than most people think.
3.It is impossible to produce a superior performance unless you do something unless you do something different from the majority.
4.The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy, and the time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell.
5.To put “Maxim 4″ in somewhat different terms, in the stock market the only way to get a bargain is to buy what most investors are selling.
6.To buy when others are despondently selling and to sell when others are greedily buying requires the greatest fortitude, even while offering the greatest reward.
7.Bear markets have always been temporary. Share prices turn upward from one to twelve months before the bottom of the business cycle.
8.If a particular industry or type of security becomes popular with investors, that popularity will always prove temporary and, when lost, won’t return for many years. Read more of this post
Seeing how Prem Watsa is in the news in India these days with respect of the sale of Thomas Cook India by its British parent,(
Sir John Templeton (November 29, 1912 – July 8, 2008) was a legendary investor and a pioneer of global investing. He took value investing to an extreme, picking industries and companies he believed to be at rock bottom, or as he called it “points of maximum pessimism.”He bought when there was blood on the streets. For example,when investors fled the New York market after the Second World War was declared, Templeton borrowed $10,000 to scoop up stocks priced at less than a dollar, often in companies that were near bankruptcy. In four years, he sold the stock, paid off the debt and pocketed $40,000—the seed money for Templeton Growth Fund, a market beater for many years.
