Jump to content

John Neff on Investing - John Neff


feynmanresearch

Recommended Posts

[amazonsearch]John Neff on Investing[/amazonsearch]

 

This is  really good book, that I think is not appreciated/known as much as it should be.John Neff managed the Windsor fund from 1964 to 1995, consistently beating the market average year after year. He describes his investment philosophy in a very straightforward way. Unlike some other authors, he provides concrete examples of his investment,alongside with his rational for undertaking them.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[amazonsearch]John Neff on Investing[/amazonsearch]

 

This is  really good book, that I think is not appreciated/known as much as it should be.John Neff managed the Windsor fund from 1964 to 1995, consistently beating the market average year after year. He describes his investment philosophy in a very straightforward way. Unlike some other authors, he provides concrete examples of his investment,alongside with his rational for undertaking them.

This is a book I've been meaning to read. Having just found a couple of used book websites I may finally get it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 years later...

I just received my copy in the mail.   My thought is that Neff knocked the ball out of the park during the 70s and 80s, during a period of very high inflation.  If inflation continues to be an issue, or gets worse, it might have some valuable insights into what has performed well for him, and what was his process for finding and analyzing these things.  Is it better to have a company with no debt, so they don't roll over their debt into higher interest rate debt?  Is it better to have a company with debt since they have locked in financing (for a time) at a lower rate? Asset light vs asset heavy?  Asset heavy with little capex, like real estate, vs asset heavy with lots of capex like a refinery? 

 

Looking forward to this one.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Almost finished with the book and giving it a bump.  There are just enough examples of investments and the outcome throughout the book to make it interesting.  A good balance between just theory and just war stories.  The Year by year summary of his investments in the back half of the book are also very good because you know what will happen with the world and he doesn't.  I didn't get any hidden arcane techniques of what to do in a high interest environment, but it seems his approach was mostly classic Ben Graham (maybe that's what works best in a high interest environment?).  

 

He writes in a very folksy, readable style.  I was surprised to find out that although he is not mentioned in the Super Investors of Graham and Doddsville list, he could be considered one of them.  Although he didn't study under Ben Graham, he took an investing class as a student in Ohio and his professor was a student in Ben Graham's class at Columbia.

 

A great book on investing that is not often mentioned, I would recommend it.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Parsad changed the title to John Neff on Investing - John Neff
  • 5 weeks later...

I just finished this book last night. A great read if a little repetitive since it details yearly trades for 20 odd years. 
 

one thing is for sure history really does rhyme. He speaks about the 70’s like it’s today. He speaks about 98-99 like it was 2021. 
 

arab states troubles spiking oil, bad government, huge deficits, unprofitable tech, Citibank being shittybank. It’s literally all the same. 
 

it also hits home the levels of the dow. The book starts at about 700 and he talks about all the calamities that are affecting the market and the ups and downs. Well today it’s around 30,000 and we still have ups and downs that feel like hell. Take that for what it’s worth to you but I’m pretty sure we all need to chill out a bit more ala dealraker. 
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...