Peter Lynch (born January 19, 1944) is an American investor, mutual fund manager, author and philanthropist. As the manager of the Magellan Fund at Fidelity Investments between 1977 and 1990, Lynch averaged a 29.2% annual return, consistently outperforming S&P 500 stock market index and making it the best-performing mutual fund in the world. During his 13-year tenure, assets under management increased from US$18 million to $14 billion.
A proponent of value investing, Lynch wrote and co-authored a number of books and papers on investing strategies, including One Up on Wall Street, published by Simon & Schuster in 1989, which sold over one million copies. He coined a number of well-known mantras of modern individual investing, such as "invest in what you know" and "ten bagger". Lynch has been described as a "legend" by the financial media for his performance record.
Contents
Early life and education
Peter Lynch was born on January 19, 1944, in Newton, Massachusetts. In 1951, when Lynch was seven, his father was diagnosed with brain cancer. He died three years later, and Lynch's mother had to work to support the family. Lynch reports that from his early teens he worked as a caddie to help support the family. During Lynch's time as a sophomore at Boston College, he used his savings to buy 100 shares of Flying Tiger Airlines at $7 per share. The stock would later rise to $80 per share, profits from which helped pay for his education.
In 1965, Lynch graduated from Boston College where he studied history, psychology, and philosophy. He later earned a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968.
Investment career
Fidelity
In 1966, Lynch was hired as an intern with Fidelity Investments partly because he had been caddying for Fidelity's president, D. George Sullivan, (among others) at Brae Burn Country Club in Newton, Massachusetts. He initially covered the paper, chemical, and publishing industries, and when he returned after a two-year Army stint he was hired permanently in 1969. This time Lynch was charged with following the textiles, metals, mining, and chemicals industries, eventually becoming Fidelity's director of research from 1974 to 1977.
In 1977, Lynch was named head of the then-obscure Magellan Fund which had $18 million in assets. By the time Lynch resigned as a fund manager in 1990, the fund had grown to more than $14 billion in assets with hundreds of stocks at the fund's largest. Joel Tillinghast, hired at Fidelity on Lynch's recommendation, later reported Lynch held so many hundreds of stocks in the fund because he felt it was "bad form" to stay in regular contact with a company but not hold the company's stock - so Lynch held lower-conviction stocks in very small percentages. From 1977 until 1990, the Magellan fund averaged a 29.2% annual return and as of 2003 had the best 20-year return of any mutual fund ever, as of 2017.
Taking over when Magellan was a small fund, Lynch had no restrictions imposed by Fidelity on what types of stocks he could buy, and was only limited by relevant laws or regulations under the Investment Company Act of 1940. He focused on individual companies he thought were good investments rather than any overarching strategy, starting with large US companies and gradually shifting his emphasis to smaller and international stocks. Lynch found successes in a broad range of stocks from different industries. According to Beating the Street his most profitable picks while running the Magellan fund were Fannie Mae ($500 million), Ford ($199 million), Philip Morris ($111 million), MCI ($92 million), Volvo ($79 million), General Electric ($76 million), General Public Utilities ($69 million), Student Loan Marketing ($65 million), Kemper ($63 million), and Lowe's ($54 million).
Investment philosophy
Lynch has written (with co-author John Rothchild) three texts on investing: One Up on Wall Street (ISBN 0671661035), Beating the Street (ISBN 0671759159), and Learn to Earn. The last-named book was written for beginning investors of all ages, mainly teenagers. In essence, One Up served as theory while Beating the Street is application. One Up lays out Lynch's investment technique including chapters devoted to stock classifications, the two-minute drill, famous numbers, and designing a portfolio. Most of Beating the Street consists of an extensive stock by stock discussion of Lynch's 1992 Barron's Magazine selections, essentially providing an illustration of the concepts previously discussed. As such, both books represent study material for investors of any knowledge level or ability.
Lynch also wrote a series of investment articles for Worth magazine that expand on many of the concepts and companies mentioned in the books.Lynch coined some of the best-known mantras of modern individual investing strategies.
His most famous investment principle is, "invest in what you know," popularizing the economic concept of "local knowledge". Since most people tend to become expert in certain fields, applying this basic "invest in what you know" principle helps individual investors find good undervalued stocks. Lynch uses this principle as a starting point for investors. He has also often said that the individual investor is potentially 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. Throughout his two classic investment primers, he has outlined many of the investments he found when not in his office. For example, in One Up Lynch explains how he invested in Dunkin' Donuts not after reading about the company in The Wall Street Journal, but after being impressed by their coffee as a customer. Assuming others would be similarly impressed and noting the company's Boston locations were always busy, he then studied the company's financial status and decided to invest in Dunkin' Donuts, which proved one of the best-performing stocks he ever bought. Lynch believes the individual investor is able to make similar smart investing choices noticing particular opportunities like Dunkin' Donuts or paying attention to business trends in their careers and hobbies. Using examples from Magellan Fund, his books outline how a novice should read and interpret company paperwork for information on stock valuation, earnings, cash flow, and other data.
Personal life
Lynch married Carolyn Ann Hoff and cofounded the Lynch Foundation. They had three daughters. His wife died in October 2015 due to complications of leukemia at age 69. He is a devout Catholic.
Wealth and philanthropy
In 2006, Boston Magazine named Lynch in the top 50 wealthiest Bostonians ranking him 40th with an overall net worth of $352 million USD.
Though he continues to work part time as vice chairman of Fidelity Management & Research Co., the investment adviser arm of Fidelity Investments, spending most of his time mentoring young analysts, Peter Lynch focuses a great deal of time on philanthropy. He 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 29 cities across the U.S.
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 Lynches have made gifts as individuals, donating $10 million to Peter Lynch's alma mater, Boston College. In turn, BC named the Lynch School of Education and Human Development after the family.
The Lynch Foundation, valued at $125 million, gave away $8 million in 2013 and has made $80 million in grants since its inception. The Foundation supports education, religious organizations, cultural and historic organizations, and hospitals and medical research. For example, the Foundation donated $20 million to establish in 2010 the Lynch Leadership Academy (LLA), a research and training program for school principals at BC's Carroll School of Management business school. The Lynch Foundation was one of the first major supporters of Teach for America, AmeriCares, and Partners in Health. Lynch was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1991.
Lynch is a member of the Harvard Medical School Board of Fellows.
Honors
Lynch received the 1992 Seton Award from the National Catholic Education Association.