John Neff on Investing »

JOHN NEFF, until his retirement in 1995, was Senior Vice President and Managing Partner of the Wellington Management Company, the Windsor Fund's investment advisor. S. L. MINTZ is New York Bureau Chief of CFO magazine, a publication of the Economist Group dedicated to the latest financial thinking and how it is being implemented in today's markets. His other books include Beyond Wall Street (Wiley) and Five Eminent Contrarians.

John Neff is a life-long contrarian, proving time-and-again over the past three decades that bucking the system can pay off big. During his illustrious career as a money manager, Neff flew in the face of conventional wisdom by consistently passing over the big growth stocks of the moment, in favor of inexpensive, under performing ones-and he usually won. During his thirty-one years as portfolio manager for Vanguard's Windsor and Gemini II Funds, he beat the market twenty-two times, through every imaginable stock market climate, while posting a 57-fold increase in an initial stake. When Windsor closed its doors to new investors in 1986, it was the largest mutual fund in the United States.
Now retired from mutual fund management, Neff is finally ready to share the investment strategies that earned him international recognition as the "investor's investor", and made him the one to whom other money managers come to manage their money. In John Neff on Investing, Neff delineates, for the first time, the principles of his phenomenally successful low p/e approach to investing, and he describes the strategies, techniques, and investment decisions that earned him a place alongside Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch in the pantheon of modern investment wizards.
Packed with solid advice and guidance for anyone who aspires to using Neff's unique brand of value investing, John Neff on Investing offers invaluable lessons on using price-earnings ratios as a yardstick, to zeroing in on undervalued stocks, interpreting earnings histories and anticipating new market climates. A narrative of Neff's early days-My Road to Windsor-reveals the extraordinary mindset and humble circumstances that shapedhis winning investment philosophy. By reproducing excerpts from his personal investment diaries, this book offers a unique opportunity to watch Neff in action over the years. A faithful, quarter-in-quarter-out chronicle of a life on Wall Street, the diaries provide unprecedented insights into the thinking behind some of his best (and worst) investment decisions, while tracing the evolution of his innovative investment style.
The first book to fully reveal the long-heralded investment strategies of a Wall Street genius, John Neff on Investing is must reading for investors, brokers, traders, and bankers of every kind.
JOHN NEFF, until his retirement in 1995, was Senior Vice President and Managing Partner of the Wellington Management Company, the Windsor Fund's investment advisor.
S.L. MINTZ, is New York Bureau Chief of CFO Magazine, a publication of the Economist Group dedicated to the latest financial thinking and how it is being implemented in today's markets. His other books include Beyond Wall Street (Wiley, 1998) and Five Eminent Contrarians.

Business Week - Robert Barker

For frontline action and analysis, I prefer John Neff On Investing (Wiley with S.L. Mintz). Neff recalls how he hitchhiked from Toledo to New York in search of his first investment job. He didn't get it, winding up picking stocks for a Cleveland bank. He eventually made his way to the top job at Windsor Fund, where he beat the market in 22 of his 31 years. The book is a thoughtful blend of investment theory and autobiography, in which he recounts big contrarian victories in such stocks as Citicorp and Boeing. The best chapter, ''Elements of Style,'' makes a cogent case for buying stocks with low price-earnings ratios--a technique that, I caution you, seems to have retired along with Neff in 1995.

Foreword.
Preface.
Prologue: Citi Saga.
MY ROAD TO WINDSOR.
Journey East.
Grubbing It Out.
Basic Training.
Banker's Hours.
Baptism by Fire.
Taking Command at Windsor.
ENDURING PRINCIPLES.
Elements of Style.
The Bargain Basement.
Care and Maintenance of a Low P/E Portfolio.
A MARKET JOURNAL.
The Silly Season.
Four Yards and a Cloud of Dust.
The Right Stuff.
Good Guys Persevere.
Deja Vu.
Epilogue: Rivers and Markets.
Appendices.
Index.