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Hi, my name is Peter Lynch. For 13 years I managed the Fidelity Magelan fund. Those were 13 incredible years. Sometimes the market fell 10% or more, and I was very consistent. Every time the Magelan fund fell 10% or more, I learned many lessons that I think are still true now, that were true 20 years ago, and that will be true 20 years from now.
I think I can help you invest better. You can't learn years of stock picking experience overnight, but you have better stock picking skills than you realize. And you have advantages that nobody on Wall Street has. Before you start investing, ask yourself one question: when will I need to use this money?
The stock market is a long-term investment. If you need to use the money soon, you shouldn't invest in stocks. This is money you're willing to put in the market and leave there for 5, 10, 20, 30 years. This is the kind of money you'll do well with. If you're worried about that, don't invest. The stock market is volatile.
Individual stocks are volatile; the average variation of... A stock's performance in a year is 50% between its high and low. Stocks go up and down; the market goes up and down. If you 're investing with a one- or two-year horizon, you shouldn't be in individual stocks, you shouldn't be in multi-stock funds.
If you were lucky enough to save a lot of money to send your children to college, and they're going to start studying in two years, what will you do if the market falls? If you want to double your money quickly and safely, double it in half and put it in your portfolio. Otherwise, you 're just gambling.
A good stock can take anywhere from a TR (triple return) to 5 years to really yield a return; it's not two or three weeks, it 's not two or TR months. My best stocks were in my fifth, sixth, or seventh year. Give your investments time to grow. Many people ask me, " When is the best time to sell a stock?" Selling stocks is a matter of comparing stories.
If story A is better than story B, sell B and buy more of A. If you own eight companies, you're playing eight simultaneous poker games, so only stay in the games where you have the best chance of success. But remember that stories rarely change overnight. It can take years for a good story to be recognized by the market; give your good stories time to grow.
You have several things that will make you a good investor; they are inherent to your life: the field you work in, the area where you live. There might be a great local company. You're a consumer; you see some products, you see some services that are great. If you know something that will make a company's profits rise, you know something that sooner or later will make the company's stock rise.
But you can't just guess; you need to have some reasons, like costs are decreasing or a new product is going to be a big success. Research is developing a company's story, an idea of why profits should rise or fall. It doesn't mean sitting in the library for hours reading SEC records or on a calculator.
Research is exciting; it's a little math. When I had Chrysler stock, that was the largest position in my fund. When I was at the movies or at a sporting event, I'd meet someone driving a minivan, and I'd ask, "What do you think of the minivan? Would you buy another one?" Research starts with the things you know—your competitive advantage.
If you're a mechanic, look at the tools you use: which are the best? Which have the best cost- benefit ratio? Or if you're a doctor, look at what technology saves money for the insurer or software systems that reduce costs in hospitals. You probably already know some companies very well. The amateur investor probably manages to keep track of five to eight companies; they could give lectures on those five or eight companies.
They know them very well. There are 10,000 to 15,000 publicly traded companies in the United States; there are many more abroad, so you don't need to be an expert on many companies, you just need to know a few very well. It's a lot of fun, a few hours a month. It's not a full-time job. I owned Dunking Donuts for 12 years.
I think I talked to them. Maybe once a year. The story didn't change much. You don't have to worry about low-cost imports coming from Korea. When you own a donut company, you don't have to worry about the economy. You don't have to worry about someone inventing a new computer chip. The story doesn't change that much.
McDonald's profits have increased, I think, more than 80 times in the last 30 years. The stock has risen 100 times, which has made McDonald's profits continue to grow. If they had just stuck with a cheap cheeseburger and a... A cheap hamburger for lunch probably would have had profit problems 10 or 15 years ago, but they expanded the menu, kept costs low, added breakfast, went overseas, and every day they open two or three more restaurants.
People thought there wasn't room for more McDonald's 5, 10, 15 years ago; they were wrong. If they had done the research, they would have said, "Well, hundreds of countries out there, there are many places to grow." You have to understand that the market falls in this century. We've had 95 years, and in 50 times we've had drops of more than 10%.
Of those 50 drops, 15 were 25% or more. So every 2 years the market falls by about 10%, every 6 years it falls by 25%. These are big drops. You need to understand this; this is the nature of the market. In 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait; the banking system was having problems; we had a recession.
Many good companies had nothing to do with wars, nothing to do with banks; they all fell in 1990. The market fell by 3000. It fell more than 20%, which gave a great opportunity to buy incredible companies at very good prices. Behind every stock there is a company. If the company does very well for a long time, the stock also does very well.
If the company does poorly, the stock also does poorly. That's what you're betting on. You're saying, "I strongly believe this company will do well." If you start seeing signs that this won't happen, the stock will respond very quickly. If the company loses momentum, the stock also loses momentum. If you start looking at the entire universe of stocks—more than 3,000 stocks on the New York Stock Exchange alone and more than 13,000 public companies in total—you'll be overwhelmed.
So I divide stocks into categories to make the research more manageable. Putting stocks into categories is the first step in developing the story. At least you'll know what kind of story it should be. The category tells you what questions you should ask about a company. You simply can't expect all stocks to behave the same way.
Basing a strategy on general maxims like selling when you double your money or selling when the price drops 10% is absolute nonsense. The formula is that if all different stocks behave differently, then they require different approaches, different expectations, and different types of stories. Suppose you've made a 50% gain on two companies: one is fast-growing with a long way to go, the other is a large, slow- growing company that has already saturated 95% of its market, and that market itself is growing slowly.
The 50% return is fantastic. For slow-growing companies, it 's probably time to sell. The same 50% return may only be the tip of the iceberg. For fast-growing companies, there are basically five categories: one would be fast-growing, two would be slow-growing, three would be cyclical, four would be asset plays, and the fifth would be turnarounds.
Meanwhile, remember that categories are guidelines, not rigid rules. Some companies may not fit perfectly into one category; others may seem to be in two categories at the same time. Almost all companies change categories at some point in their lives. The price of a stock will follow the direction of earnings in almost all cases.
Generally, it can be stated that if a company's earnings increase sharply... Stocks will rise if profits go from very bad to average; stocks will likely rise if they go from average to good; they will likely have another rise if they go from good to excellent; or if a company's profits grow dramatically over a prolonged period, the stock will likely rise dramatically.
Investing is a personal thing; you need to do it alone; you don't do it with a committee; you need emotional strength to withstand the volatility of the market in general and stocks in particular. The main organ here isn't the brain, it's the stomach. Do you have the stomach for it? Do you have the patience for it?
You should be able to look in the mirror and say to yourself, "What am I going to do if the market falls?" Don't be intimidated; everyone can do well in the stock market. You have the skills; you have the intelligence. You don't need an academic background; you just need patience. Do a little research; you can do it. Don't worry. Don't get pan n
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