John Neff on Investing

by John Neff

Book Overview

Zusammen mit Warren Buffett und Peter Lynch gehort John Neff, der mittlerweile in den Ruhestand getreten ist, zu den herausragendsten Personlichkeiten der Finanzwelt. Seine unverwechselbaren Techniken haben ihm in seiner langjahrigen Karriere als Money Manager viel Ruhm und Ansehen eingebracht.
In "John Neff on Investing" spricht Neff uber seine Investmentstrategien und Techniken. Sein Rat fur den Aktienkauf lautet: Kaufen, wenn die Aktien am...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471197173
• ISBN13: 9780471197171
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: Wiley
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

John Neff gives back

Many of the investing legends, such as Warren Buffett, have someone that influenced their investment philosophy. For John Neff it was Sidney Robbins, a follower of Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. This book is about investing, but also about John Neff's personal life story. By reading about Neff's life experiences and his personality, readers can understand why value investing is such a good fit for him. In Chapter 7, the author explains his investment style that his firm used whether the market was up, down, or indifferent. His investment criteria boils down to: * Low price-earnings (p/e) ratio * Fundamental growth in excess of 7 percent * Yield protection (and enhancement, in most cases) * Superior relationship of total return to p/e paid * No cyclical exposure without compensating p/e multiple * Solid companies in growing fields * Strong fundamental case I highly recommend this book to any investor. Next time you think about broad diversification, just remember this quote by John Neff, "You can diversify yourself into mediocrity." - Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Learn how to profit significantly from Neff!

John Neff on Investing is a must read for any serious investor. I myself have read many MANY investment books written by (or on behalf of) masters such as Buffett, Fisher, Graham, Lynch, etc, but none has been more influential to my own investment style than John Neff. Like the contrarian himself, Neff's book is somewhat different from the usual. For the most part, it reads like a journal. Although I personally found it extremely practical and enlightening. Most importantly, Neff reveals how a master like himself thinks. By and large Part 2 is the best - I constantly re-read that section over and over again.Since reading his book, I have profited significantly. Low P/E investing and Total Return Ratio is now the cornerstone of my investment style. Good luck to all!

Great book, good investment advice

This book is prefect for an individual investor who wants to learn about value investing. Most of the book is a history of the Authors experience managing the Windsor Fund.It is good to see the historical perspective and how sticking to buying low P/E stocks has paid off. In his history he talks about getting in and out of oil stocks as the PE changes due to shifting investor sentiment. It is encouraging to see that sticking to this strategy can be successful.The book gives me confidence to stick with the current low PE stocks such as airlines, automotives, retailers, and home builders.

John Neff on Common Sense

Neff and co-author Steven L. Mintz do an admirable job of describing the art of concentrated, low P/E investing. Of particular interest is the commentary about distinguishing low P/E candidates from the universe of companies that simply have poor business prospects.

Wisdom of the Ages

Mutual fund managers who can beat the market for a couple of years are a dime a dozen. Mutual fund managers who can beat the market for a couple of decades are practically unheard of. Which is why almost every investor has heard of John Neff. In his 31 years as a bargain-hunting fund manager, he beat the market in 22 of them. By the time he retired a few years ago, a dollar invested in his Windsor Fund in 1964 would have returned $56, versus $22 for the S & P 500.In JOHN NEFF ON INVESTING, one of the true masters of Wall Street tells us exactly how he compiled this amazing record. With collaborator Steven Mintz, he explains what kinds of stocks he looked for (in a nutshell, low p/e stocks of companies growing earnings in excess of 7% annually, often paying a respectable dividend) and a long list of qualifications concerning just what makes one low p/e stock better than another. (A low p/e company growing too fast is suspect. A dividend yield isn't always a must. Cyclical stocks should offer lower p/e multiples. The list goes on and on.) Just as importantly, Neff shares the wisdom of a lifetime in the investment business, outlining the pitfalls that can trap the unwary investor. (See Chapter 9, CARE AND MAINTENANCE OF A LOW P/E PORTFOLIO.The meat of Neff's discussion of his investment style is included in the middle third of the book. Armed with this advice, an investor can easily begin to screen the stock market for companies that fit the Neff mold. (MSN MoneyCentral Investor, at www.investor.msn.com, offers a powerful and free screening tool. There are many others.)Elsewhere, Neff devotes the first third of his book to talking about his formative years in the investment business prior to taking over the Windsor Fund. In the final third of the book, he provides a journal describing his investment activities at the helm of the Windsor Fund. He talks about critical buy-sell decisions, why he made them, and how they worked out ... and also describes the ever-changing market environment in which he was making them. (Reading this book is a great reminder that large-cap growth stocks don't always lead the market, as they have for the past five years. As such, it should help investors be better prepared the next time market leadership changes.)If you had the chance to sit down and talk with John Neff for a few weeks about his career and his investment style, what you would get, though likely not so well structured, would be this book. I'd love to spend those weeks with John Neff. But I wouldn't give up the chance to have read this book, either. Few investors have achieved more than Neff, and his story deserves a place on any investor's reading list. ###