The Templeton Way: Lessons From Legendary Investor Sir John Templeton

Sir John Templeton′s investment tactics have been praised and followed by countless professionals and individual investors around the world. Templeton′s advice––from the 1930s to today––has been unique. He encouraged Americans to invest overseas when few people thought of putting money outside of the US. His advice is the opposite of the often repeated, "buy low, sell high." He says investors should pick nations, industries and companies at their rock bottom. In his own words, "I never in all my life bought a stock because I liked it. I bought it because it was a cheaper bargain than any similar stock I would buy anywhere in the rest of the world."

Templeton came from rural Winchester, TN, and had planned for himself a life dedicated completely to religious service. He found himself at Yale, and halfway through his college career, his father said that he would no longer pay for his son′s college education. Templeton then worked his way through Yale and won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford.

He came back to the United States, working first in Tennessee, and then in New York where he started as a trainee at Fenner Beane, a predecessor of Merrill Lynch. While at this firm, at the start of World War II, Templeton was convinced that a stock market boom was beginning and he made what are now considered some of his trademark decisions. He would buy what was being thrown away and hold onto these stocks for an average of four years. Templeton′s instincts were correct; he ended up buying another investment firm and grew that business––Templeton, Dobbrow Vance––into a firm that managed some $300 million including eight mutual funds. However, Templeton grew disenchanted with the size of the firm and sold all his holdings except for Templeton Growth Fund to Piedmont Management. At age 56, he moved to Nassau, focusing on this one fund, along with his philanthropic efforts.

Templeton′s philanthropy is well known and includes the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, which offers the world′s largest monetary award at $1 million. In recognition for his philanthropic efforts, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 1987.