1/ Today is Peter Lynch's birthday

He's one of the greatest investors of all time

Retuning 29.2% annually from 1977-1990

Here are my favorite quotes from this fountain of investing wisdom

2/ "Everyone has the brainpower

to make money in stocks.

Not everyone has the stomach."

3/ “Nothing has occurred to shake my conviction that the

typical amateur has advantages over the typical

pro­fes­sional fund jockey."

4/ "Everyone has the power to follow the stock market.

If you made it through fifth-grade math, you can do it."

5/ "The key to making money in stocks

is not to get scared out of them."

6/ "In dieting and in stocks,

it is the gut

and not the head

that determines the results."

7/ "You want to be in a stock

in the second inning of the ballgame,

and out in the seventh.

That could be 30 years."

8/ "Any business that can manage to keep up a 20 to 25

percent growth rate for 20 years will reward shareholders

with a massive return,

even if the stock market overall is lower after 20 years."

9/ "Go for a business that any idiot can run

because sooner or later,

any idiot probably is going to run it."

10/ "Although it's easy to forget sometimes,

a share is not a lottery ticket.

It's part-ownership of a business."

11/ "If all the economists in the world were laid end to end,

it wouldn't be a bad thing."

12/ "there's only one real reason why stocks go up.

Companies go from doing poorly to doing well

or small companies grow to large companies."

13/ "When stocks are attractive, you buy them.

Sure, they can go lower.

I've bought stocks at $12 that went to $2,

but then they later went to $30.

You just don't know when you can find the bottom."

14/ "Don't bottom fish."

15/ "I think the secret is if you have a lot of stocks,

some will do mediocre,

some will do okay,

and if one of two of 'em go up big time,

you produce a fabulous result. "

16/ “Far more money has been lost by investors

preparing for corrections,

or trying to anticipate corrections,

than has been lost in corrections themselves.”

17/ "The stock market's been the best place to be over

the last 10 years, 30 years, 100 years.

But if you need the money in 1 or 2 years,

you shouldn't be buying stocks. "

18/ "If you're prepared to invest in a company,

then you ought to be able to explain why in simple

language that a fifth-grader could understand,

and quickly enough so the fifth grader won't get bored."

19/ "Never invest in any company before you've done the

homework on the company's earnings prospects,

financial condition, competitive position,

plans for expansion, and so forth."

20/ "Investing in stocks is an art, not a science,

and people who've been trained to rigidly quantify

everything have a big disadvantage."

21/ "During the Gold Rush,

most would-be miners lost money,

but people who sold them picks, shovels, tents,

and blue-jeans made a nice profit."

22/ "In this business, if you're good,

you're right six times out of ten.

You're never going to be right nine times out of ten."

23/ "Time is on your side

when you own shares of superior companies."

24/ "Investing without research

is like playing stud poker

and never looking at the cards."

25/ His books

One Up On Wall Street
Beating The Street
Learn To Earn

Are must-reads

Happy Birthday Peter!