Peter Lynch is a legendary value investor with the track record to show for it. Indeed, if you’re a young, beginning investor, you’re probably unaware of the man’s incredibly hot run his fund enjoyed through the late-1970s and the entirety of the 1980s. Through the baker’s dozen years as manager of Fidelity’s Magellan fund, he landed a nearly 30% annualized return. That’s not just impressive, it’s unprecedented.

Though various hedge fund managers may top markets in any given two, four, or even five-year timespan, it’s very difficult to score market-beating returns for more than a decade. What’s more, Lynch not only topped the market over the lengthy timespan, he crushed it with a return that’s thrice that of what investors should expect from the broad stock market (the S&P 500 can be expected to average 9%, maybe 10% returns in any given year).

Peter Lynch: A brilliant investor worth reading up on.

With plenty of reading material out there (I’ve stated in prior pieces that Peter Lynch’s hit book One Up on Wall Street is a mandatory read for every new DIY investor) that goes into Lynch’s strategy, new investors have a lot of wisdom out there to absorb. And in this piece, we’ll look at two pieces of advice that I believe many market newcomers may take the wrong way.

Indeed, such advice is easy to read and understand but hard to put to work when you’re in the trenches as a self-guided investor navigating turbulent markets, macro headwinds, and other uncertainties.

With the Nasdaq 100 now down nearly 8% from its recent high, it’s not hard to imagine many investors are scrambling and forgetting the words of wisdom from folks like Warren Buffett or Peter Lynch. When you lose your cool, all of the knowledge you’ve absorbed can take a backseat as your emotions control your investment decisions. 

In any case, there’s no better time to revisit Lynch’s advice, which may very well help you better navigate these rough patches in the market as we head into Spring.

There’s more to “invest[ing] in what you know.”

“Invest in what you know,” Lynch once famously said. It’s a very simple rule that’s helped Lynch put broader markets to shame during his tenure at Magellan. And while simplicity tends to trump complexity, I do think that this fantastic piece of advice may be taken the wrong way by beginners. Indeed, it’s more than worth evaluating the quote with a more nuanced perspective.

Though buying shares of companies whose products you use and enjoy on a regular basis may be part of the market research process, it’s merely dipping a toe into the stock evaluation process. Being a fan of a product alone isn’t enough to justify buying shares.

You need to gauge the caliber of management, conduct a thorough valuation of shares (overpaying can lead to losses, no matter how “wonderful” the business), examine the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement with a magnifying glass, and evaluate the growth drivers at hand and how they’ll impact the size and timing of future cash flows. Indeed, it’s a lot of work that goes into fully understanding the inner workings of a business.

When it comes to complex, difficult-to-understand businesses with erratic cash flows (or lack thereof), you’ll have a harder time putting in the homework. And it’ll likely be subject to more mistakes. So, if you can’t explain what AI-driven data analytics entails, it’s probably best to stick with something you do understand.

Are you diversifying or di-worsifying your portfolio?

Peter Lynch’s concept of “di-worsification” may sound counterintuitive. You’ve probably heard that diversification is the only free lunch and that it’s ill-advised not to be sufficiently diversified. While diversification is a good move, too much of it can bring negligible value to the table while swamping you with excessive homework to put it as you scramble to “catch up” and stay in the know about all of your portfolio’s holdings.

Indeed, if you’ve got 30 or 50 stocks in your portfolio, there’s bound to be a lot of overlap. And you probably don’t have time to check in with each holding. Such a portfolio would be overdue for a rebalancing (or spring cleaning) so that you’ll have a more manageable portfolio that gets all of the benefits of diversification (reduction of market risk) minus the added bloat.

Now, does this mean you should concentrate your portfolio in just a handful of names? Of course, not! It merely means you shouldn’t let the number of holdings in your portfolio grow unchecked because after a certain point, more stocks won’t do you much good, it may even do some harm.

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