STEPHEN CRANSTON: Hangin’ out at the mall, Lynch made some great bets
The famed analyst would always kick the tyres of any vehicle he decided to ride
Peter Lynch’s success at the Fidelity Magellan Fund shows index funds don’t always win. In his 13-year tenure from 1977 to 1990 he had an annualised return of 29.2%, more than twice that of the S&P 500. And this was not a small fund — it peaked at $12bn — nor did it get lucky with a handful of stocks. It held 450 shares, sometimes as many as 900.
Lynch should be a hero to any financial journalist as his analysis made every share interesting. It would never occur to him not to kick the tyres before buying a share, which didn’t mean poring over a spreadsheet — not that spreadsheets existed in their present form then...
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