Spotting Winners at the Mall

摘要

The greatest mutual fund manager of the 20th century once explained a secret to his success: "I began my search for new selections in the usual fashion. I headed straight for my favorite source of investment ideas: the Burlington Mall." Those are the words of Peter Lynch, manager of Fidelity Magellan in its heyday, from 1977 to 1990, when the fund racked up an annualized return of 29% - twice the rate of Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. In a series of books that Lynch wrote after he retired, he said that if individual investors would put the "power of common knowledge" to work, they could gain an edge over professionals. Look around you and, as the subtitle of Lynch's One Up on Wall Street put it, "use what you already know."