"Every mile I moved away from New York"

[giofranchi]

“John Templeton was once asked what had made the greatest difference to the quality of his investment decision making. He replied, “Every mile I moved away from New York.” As we have seen, this is borne out by the evidence; the margin by which his fund beat the market went from zero to 6 percent per annum when he moved to the Bahamas and started to work on his own. Investment analysis is, or should be, a contemplative and peaceful task. It is unlikely to be successful in an environment where the telephone never stops ringing and the analyst is distracted by multiple screens of data, all changing in real time, on the desk in front of him.

…

As we have seen, initially working alone in the Bahamas, Sir John was able to produce a track record that is unlikely ever to be bettered. He had no Internet and no fax machine. His information was out of date by the time it arrived. All he had was access to historic financial statements, the contacts he had built up over many years, and the scope for extensive travel. It was the depth and clarity of his thought that determined his results, not the volume of information or the speed with which it was delivered.”

 

TEMPLETON’S Way with Money

 

I was wondering, just curious, how many investors on the board have already managed to successfully arrange life habits and job tasks, so that their investment analysis actually is a “contemplative and peaceful task”? In other words, how many of you already succeeded in breaking free from the daily frenetic routine most people have to constantly endure?

 

giofranchi

[ASTA]

Hello Gio,

As a new board member I can only tell from my experience from only managing my own money full time its still though. As building a house for 2.5 years really hurt and family times and I don't even have kids. But once I have good track record I might go to work. And its quite lonely to just sit at home and read all the time. But as I own 20% in fhh I might go to a forum/ffh meeting soon for some fun. And as a bonus and thanks to this forum I made 160% in ostk becoming 20% of my portfolio this year so my other bad idea's don't look so bad.

 

RSS Feed have actually saved me a lot of time keeping track of different blogs so I don't need to click on there websites every day. Its now all automatic and I can read more blog-posts this way.

So breaking free from frenetic routines is up to each persons circumstances I think and one needs to optimizes ones time according to that. Just like in investing I learned a lot by customizing my investing according to my circumstances. And as I side note I like your way of investing with your time restraints from what I have read here. And I am flowing a similar path but throwing in BAC,HPQ(down 64%) and other stocks so leets see if my side investing will do better then straight up fhh. It has so far :D

Cheers,

 

ASTA     

[giofranchi]

ASTA,

thank you for your answer and welcome to the board! :)

 

giofranchi

[luck]

i moved to a burb in the bay area, california due to young kids after living in nyc ten years and my investment decisions have been pretty good since then.  i blundered on a few small caps without a clear value thesis while there.  not sure i should blame the city for my mishaps though, but there's definitely something to be said for templeton's quote.