John Neff on Investing

Conventional wisdom suggests that, for investors, more information these days is a blessing and more competition is a curse. I'd say the opposite is true. Coping with so much information runs the risk of distracting attention from the few variables that really matter. Because sound evaluations call for assembling information in a logical and carefu

I wasn't uncomfortable going into retirement. I had given Windsor my all. I was going out while I still had a lot left, which had been my intention.

No solitary measure or pair of measures should govern a decision to buy a stock. You need to probe a whole raft of numbers and facts, searching for confirmation or contradiction.

We never salivated for the last dollar in a major move (i.e., the oil stocks). Instead, we tried to take stocks from undervalued to fairly valued. We left "greater-fool" investing to others.

A low p/e strategy typically makes maximum mone} six to nine months before cyclical companies report better earnings. Predicting that point will tax an investor's understanding of an industry's dynamics and of overarching economic considerations.

Windsor was never fancy, fad-driven, or resigned to market performance. We followed one durable investment style whether the market was up, down, or indifferent. These were its principal elements:• Low price-earnings (p/e) ratio.• Fundamental growth in excess of 7 percent.• Yield protection (and enhancement, in most cases).• Superior relationship o

Brain surgery it's not, but I've always found that investors who skip elementary steps stumble sooner rather than later.

Dodds succumbed to alcohol, the company went bankrupt, and three more lessons were impressed upon me at a young age: (1) when it comes to money, emotional attachment can fool you; (2) just because a company is down it is not always a wise investment,

Investing is not a very complicated business; people just make it complicated. You have to learn to go from the general to the particular in a logical, sequential, rational manner.