Investors' masterclass
WHERE there's a tip there's a tap, so what do you get where there are 21 tips? You get an endowment. The point was not wasted on the City audience which filled Haber- dashers' Hall to hear a grandmaster of investment, John Templeton, talk about his art. He gave 21 principles, these among them: —If you buy the same securities as other people, you will have the same results as other people —To buy when others are despondently selling, and to sell when others are greedily buying, requires the greatest fortitude and pays the greatest reward.
— Popularity in a share or sector will prove temporary, and when lost will not return for many years (examples: oil, electronics) —When any method of share selection is too popular, switch to an unpopular method — If 60 doctors tell you something, it's right, and if 60 engineers tell you some- thing, it's right, but if 60 investment analysts tell you something, it's too late —Share prices fluctuate more widely than values — The best performance is produced by a single person, not a committee.
His hearers can expect to be tapped in support of Templeton College, which is to be Oxford's college of management and business studies. Profiting from his advice, they may find the experience has been self-financing. They should follow the sub- missive example of the University's Chan- cellor, Lord Stockton, speaking at the college's christening: 'I am here because the Master of Balliol' (where John Temple- ton was a Rhodes Scholar in the 1930s) 'told me to come, and if you are a Balliol man you do what the Master tells you — unless, of course, you are an under- graduate.'
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