Customer Reviews

Investing the Templeton Way: The Market-Beating Strategies of Value Investing's Legendary Bargain Hunter

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book hoping to learn more about how to invest in foreign stocks since Templeton was known for that. Unfortunately other than a few simple things like checking to make sure a government's debt is no more than 25% of GDP, there were very few specifics. The author presents a couple of examples where "Uncle John" took advantage of distrust in foreign markets (like investing in South Korea during the Asian financial crises) to make great investments, but doesn't go enough into enough detail to be of any real benefit to anybody.

The book is more about the very basics of being a value investor and the attitudes needed to be successful in investing (ie, don't follow the crowd, buy low P/E or low PEG stocks, diversification). But even that is presented in somewhat of a haphazard way compared to other books, such as Peter Lynch's books or some of the books about Warren Buffet. Chapter 6, "No Trouble TO Short The Bubble", is not much more than a recount of the tech wreck and an admonishment to people who bought tech stocks at high P/Es. The main points of the book could have been made in half the pages. Only the last chapter on China was interesting.

I gave three stars because this would be an ok book for a beginning investor, but for an intermediate or advanced investor this in not much more than a rah-rah book about value investing and is more like one or two stars.

Templeton was truly one of the greatest investors of all time. This book does give you insight into his thinking and methodology. So it should be a great book since there are very few books about him. However be warned the writing is just horrendous. I never cared about the writing style of a how to book, but this one is just terrible. Extremely hard to keep you interested, as if a 11 year old wrote this. It repeats the small irrelevant points as if it was the greatest discovery ever. It is just very annoying to read. Still I did learn from it. It explained that Templeton used bottom up approach to pick countries, if he found many companies to buy in Japan then he picked that country (He did not look at Macro factors and then decide to pick stock in that country)It gave good examples about how not to follow the crowd into hot markets and simple pointers like look for low P/E's, and use diversification unless you are right 100% of the time. But it was truly very hard to read.

My expectations out of this book got dashed. It has little to offer. I found it tough to take down even half a page of notings / learnings from this book. On an average the learnings for such a book run into multiple pages.
Narrative style is vague and book lacks continuity and core theme and details.

This is the most vacuuous investment book I have read. The authors manage to pack about 4 pages of content into 240 pages of text. The remainder is tedious padding that reads as a ploy by the authors to curry favour with the book's subject. The constant reference to 'Uncle John' is but one, albeit the most egregious, example of the authors' desire to genuflect in front of the great man rather than analyse him. Advice such as when Uncle John recommends a stock you should buy it is hardly illuminating.

This is a great shame as his track-record is extraordinary and some attempt at insight would have been powerful. Templeton's core investment themes include being analytical, distancing yourself from emotion and seeking out value - apply those to the buy/don't-buy decision for this book and steer clear.

I was very exited to find a Investment book on John Templeton investment strategies. But after reading this book I am very disappointed. This does not mean I disagree with John Templeton strategies. The main problem is with the structure of this book. To me, author seems to be very confused whether he wants to write Templeton biography, his strategies or history of countries which Templeton used to cover.

To give you an example, chapter 10 runs into 20 pages detailing China's economic and political events. It has got just three main messages. Buy stocks in countries 1) with high savings rate 2) trade surplus 3) and high profits attracts competition.

So If you have patience to read 268 pages, which could well be condensed into not more than 100 pages, this is a good book. I have given it two star, because I do not appreciate anything which waste time.

The Money Magazine has called the late Sir John Templeton "the greatest stock picker of the century". Indeed, this is the investment book for our time, for 2009 and 2010 or possibly beyond just as long as we are in deep recession. Sir John's most well-known principle is "investing at the point of maximum pessimism", which is now. Sir John has had the most success when purchasing stocks priced far too low in relation to their intrinsic worth. As Sir John put it, "To buy when others are despondently selling and to sell when others are avidly buying requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest ultimate reward". Sir John also said that the best time to "buy is when there's blood in the street". Sir John was once asked how to identify the point of maximumm pessimism . His answer is that the point was reached when there were no more buyers left in the market, and the sellers were about to take control. That point was reached on 10 March 2000, when the NASDAC hits its all-time high of 5,132. In addition, throughout his career in investment, Sir John had searched the world over for the best bargain stocks available. Research shows that a stock portfolio with investments around the world is likely to yield, in the long run, a higher return at lower level of volatility than will a simple, diversified single-nation portfolio. Diversification should be the cornerstone of any investment program. In short, Sir John's approach is threefold: (1). Be price conscious - buy bargain; (2). Focus on the long term outlook and (3). Don't pay attention to the short term outlook knowing that most bargains are created when the near term outlook is poor to clouded. Digest this book and you will never again be afraid of recession.

A most fascinating and interesting read - well written and well polished. If you adopt these approaches, you need to be a hardworking, brave, intelligent contrarian investor. The book loads lots of interesting historic detail of past crises and opportunity and how Templeton dealt with them. Not only interesting history and facts, but also great inspiration for those who seek guidance from the best.

Good information about the forces which shaped a great investing mind, but I'll hazard a guess the writers could've shortened the book by 20% if they had tried using "him", "his" or "he" instead of "Uncle John". I had to grit my teeth through whole chapters to finish - seriously - read the first several pages and understand this style of tedium persists throughout the text.

If you really want to read this book, borrow it from the library. It's not worth owning; frankly, it's not worth reading either.

It certainly does not compare to One Up on Wall Street or any of the offerings of Peter Lynch. The best part of this book is the foreword by John Templeton; however, there is truly nothing worth reading after that.

The style is engaging; the content is anemic. Sure, there are lots of anecdotes about the highly successful investing style of Sir John and his penurious predilection--nothing new there; his value investing style is well known and documented. There's nothing really valuable in the anecdotes that he provides. If what is written is novel, perhaps the ready shouldn't invest directly in common stock!

Overall, a disappointing book, but I am sure it was a nice present for Uncle John.

"I'm approaching my 95th birthday," Sir John Templeton, the great old investor writes in the foreword to the new book about his methods put together by his great-niece (Investing the Templeton Way). The short foreword has some words of advice. One that stuck with me: "Throughout history, people have focused too little on the opportunities that problems present in investing and in life in general."

I find that the stories of great investors are like wells of inspiration. Anytime I'm feeling down or defeated, I read over the wisdom and experience of some great investor and my spirits lift. It works as well as two pints of beer.

If anyone knows about the relationship between trouble and profits, it's Templeton.

Templeton spent in his young adult years in the Great Depression, which surely left its marks on his psyche - as it did on many others'. Templeton, for instance, paid cash for his first house. He never had a mortgage and never borrowed money to buy a car. These thrifty attitudes carried over to his investing style. He gravitated toward cheap stocks. As a result, he was a buyer during the Great Depression, when most people wanted nothing to do with stocks.

Templeton picked up many steals. For instance, he bought shares of Missouri Pacific Railroad for 12.5 cents per share, selling them some years later for $5 per share. He had many other successes.

But out of all that, Templeton's fame may rest more on the fact that he was something of a pioneer when it came to investing overseas. The early success of his Templeton Growth Fund in the 1950s and later was, in part, due to his early identification of overseas opportunities.

Among those was Japan, a market he rode to great riches - and which he got out of before it all fell apart in the late 1980s. He first invested there after World War II.

Templeton liked to invest when there were few interested buyers, during times of "maximum pessimism," as he liked to say.

In his foreword, Templeton wrote, "The 21st century offers great hope and glorious promise, perhaps a new golden age of opportunity." He can say that because where he sees problems, he also sees opportunity. I see lots of problems today, too... and many opportunities. Japan's small-cap market is just one interesting possibility."

Review by a writer for Agora Financial, publisher of economic and financial analysis including Financial Reckoning Day Fallout: Surviving Today's Global Depression, The New Empire of Debt: The Rise and Fall of an Epic Financial Bubble, and I.O.U.S.A.: One Nation. Under Stress. In Debt.