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:''For the film director by the same name, please see [[Peter Lynch (director)]].'' |
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'''Peter Lynch''' (born [[January 19]], [[1944]]) is a successful [[Wall Street]] [[investor]], and arguably one of the best stock-pickers in the world. He is currently a president at [[Fidelity Investments]]. |
'''Peter Lynch''' (born [[January 19]], [[1944]]) is a successful [[Wall Street]] [[investor]], and arguably one of the best stock-pickers in the world. He is currently a president at [[Fidelity Investments]]. |
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Revision as of 15:01, 27 July 2005
Peter Lynch (born January 19, 1944) is a successful Wall Street investor, and arguably one of the best stock-pickers in the world. He is currently a president at Fidelity Investments.
Before being hired as a stock analyst for Fidelity, Lynch served for two years in the United States Army and studied at Boston College and finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Lynch was given the $20 million Fidelity Magellan Fund to manage in 1977, and under his direction it grew to eventually be worth over $14 billion by 1990, when he retired. The fund averaged a staggering 29.2% return a year, and only underperformed the S&P 500 index twice. His biggest investing successes included "discovering" undervalued companies such as Taco Bell and Pier 1 Imports before periods of strong growth.
After he retired he wrote two popular books on stock picking, Beating the Street (ISBN 0671891634) in 1994 and One Up on Wall Street (ISBN 0743200403) in 1989. Both are considered required reading for any serious investor.
Peter Lynch's most famous investment principle is simply "Invest in what you know," popularizing the economic concept of "local knowledge." This simple principle resonates well with average non-professional investors who don't have time to learn complicated quantitative stock measures or pore over financial reports. Since everyone tends to become an expert in certain fields, applying this basic "invest in what you know" principle helps individual investors find good undervalued stocks. Peter Lynch uses this principle as a starting point for investors. He has also often said that the individual investor is more capable of making money from stocks than a fund manager, because they are able to spot good investments in their day-to-day lives before Wall Street becomes aware of them. Lynch understands this concept well, because throughout his two classic investment primers, he has outlined many of the great investments he found when not in his office - he found them when he was out with his family, driving around or making a purchase at the mall. Lynch believes the individual investor is able to do this, too.
Currently Peter Lynch focuses a great deal of time on philanthropy. Lynch, who continues to work as vice chairman of Fidelity Management & Research Co., the investment adviser arm of Fidelity Investments, said he views philanthropy as a form of investment. He said he prefers to give money to support ideas that he thinks can spread, such as First Night, the New Year's Eve festival that began in Boston in 1976 and has inspired similar events in more than 200 other communities, and City Year, a community service program founded in Boston in 1988 that now operates in 14 locations.
The Lynches give money primarily in five ways: as individuals, through the Lynch Foundation, through a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, and through two charitable trusts.
The Lynch Foundation, which had $74 million in assets in 2003, supports education, religious organizations, cultural and historic organizations, and hospitals and medical research.