Peter Lynch managed the Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990 when it was one of the most successful mutual-funds of all time. He then became a vice chairman at Fidelity and more recently has become a prominent philanthropist particularly active in the Boston area. His books include One Up on Wall Street, Beating the Street, and Learn to Earn (all written with John Rothchild). John Rothchild was formerly a financial columnist for Time and Fortune magazines.
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Lynch is a wonderful storyteller with a marvelous wit. He's one of the best investors of all time, who pulls back the veils and mysteries of Wall Street to teach the reader that he too can succeed handsomely by just keeping it simple. I enjoyed this book very much, but I think One Up on Wall Street is more of a must read. I would recommend starting with that one.
5.0 out of 5 starsA definite book to have for reference
31 May 2020 - Published on Amazon.com
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This is a great companion book to the original Beating Wall Street book. This has to be read after the first one and it better written - IMHO - as it provides more investment strategies (the "why") stocks were picked. Better for the moderate investor. A bit much for the beginner. An easy ready to the advanced investor (I'm guessing). This book takes the emotion out of investing and urges solid number crunching and research. I will say that being who he is, Mr. Lynch has more access to inside, key data that average people. For example, he discusses meeting with CEOs. At the same time, he uses data available to all.
4.0 out of 5 starsA classic read for home gamers and budding investment analysts
22 August 2011 - Published on Amazon.com
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Most memorable books of investing provide you a first-hand insight into the minds of Wall Street's successful and storied investors. Beating the Street is no exception. It gives us an opportunity to peer into the philosophy of one of Wall Street's greatest investors ever, Peter Lynch. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Peter Lynch, he headed Fidelity's flagship Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990. His track record is still today a legend, having given investors a nearly 30% compounded return during his tenure. Beating the Street is Peter's autobiographical chronicle on how his investment strategies developed and evolved as he grew the fund from obscurity into a multi-billion dollar juggernaut.
I find the beginning chapters of the book very relatable and eye opening. Peter has a very down-to-earth style of talking about his life as a portfolio manager and has no shame in sharing the lessons learned from his investing missteps. I find it interesting that he never really had any set strategy for diversification and didn't really pick stocks to weight his selections among certain industries or types of investment. Rather, he just studied hundreds of different stocks looking for underlying fundamentals that seemed favorable. He never really distinguishes himself as a "growth investor" or "value investor", but contrasts the semantics between the two in his early chapters. I would consider him to be a growth investor since he focuses strongly on long term increases in earnings and dividends. Many of Peter Lynch's methodologies sound similar to much of what is presented in Jim Cramer's books. However, I would characterize Peter's delivery and presentation much closer to "sane money" than "mad money".
The writing style is very personable, and I like how most of the book could probably be understood by a fifth grader. But that is not to say the book is too simplistic. Later chapters go into more detail with the financial metrics Peter looks for in a company - something that both amateurs and professional investors could find insightful.
The fact that Beating the Street was published in 1993 is no disadvantage, and in fact makes the book more interesting since Peter's stock picks can be viewed through the scope of time. Curiously, many of the stocks that Peter recommends in this book are now defunct since the companies have been merged or taken over by larger entities. Perhaps they were bought out because of the same attractive fundamentals that put them on Peter's radar.
However, it should be noted that many of his picks went through tough times for investors not long after the book's publication. One of his favorite stock picks, Supercuts, overstepped its capacity by expanding too aggressively. By the mid-1990s, Supercuts was unable to make enough money to recoup the debt acquired from its rapid build-out. In his pitch, Peter also didn't tackle the question of competition crowding out Supercuts since its business model was so easy to replicate. Some of his other picks like Nucor or Cedar Fair are still publicly traded today, but have mostly traded sideways with bumpy ups and downs for the last 18 years. Since the early 90s those stocks would have presented subpar returns to buy-and-hold investors.
The poor performance observed by researching a handful of Peter's recommendations makes me wonder if the "50-baggers" and "200-baggers" that he ran across as a portfolio manager during the 80s could still exist in today's sideways market. A cursory look at some of his favorite stocks mentioned in the book made me realize that stock performance in general during the 80s and early 90s was superior to the decades after. Just look at the chart for Cracker Barrel, which returned almost 1900% in price appreciation from 1984 to 1993, but at its best only returned about 100% from 1993 to 2011. Although this is a topic for further research, it makes me wonder whether Peter's principles still apply in today's stock market or whether they need some updating.
The question of whether Peter's style still has the same effectiveness is why I am only giving the book four stars. Has much really changed? Would Peter still be able to generate annualized returns of 30% in today's sideways market? We may never know. I would love to see an updated edition with an epilogue from Peter on what he would do differently in today's environment and how he would change his recommendations given hindsight.
5.0 out of 5 starsFascinating read by one of the few greats!
12 July 2020 - Published on Amazon.com
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I really enjoyed Lynch's honest take on managing the Magellan fund. I think he was humble enough to admit his luck and how he got "enough of the 10-50X" returns to make up for his more numerous small losses or break-even deals. I think the DIY investor can learn a lot from this. First, it helped me remember that I'm not a pro and this isn't my day job. I can't go on a trip to research a company. Second, times have really changed since Lynch's success. The Magellan fund went on to mediocrity falling his departure. Which brings me to this point: index investing just has too much research supporting it. Even Lynch acknowledged that many active managers are little more than "closet index funds". So, as a DIY index investor following more of a Beating VTSAX approach, I liked it!
Looking to educated myself on the stock market this was a great introduction. As well as a confidence builder to get out there and learn more about the stock market. Peter Lynch gives you multiple ways to get into the market, some he prefers more than others, but regardless we gives you an outline of his strategy for all strategies. Great read.