Point is would you say to yourself do I need this money in a year
do I need this money in two years, do I need this money in three years,
so, my longer term stock market's been the best place to be last 10 years, last 30 years, last
130 years. But if you need the money in one or two years you shouldn't be buying stocks.
In the stock market the most important organ is the stomach. It's not the brain there's always
on the way to work, the amount of bad news you can hear is almost infinite now. So the question is: Can
you take that? I mean do you really have faith that 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now common stocks
are the place to be. If you believe in that, you should have some money in equity funds. I mean it's a
question of what's your tolerance for pain. I mean the stock market's a very good place to be. But
I could toss a coin now it's gonna be lower two years from now, higher I don't know.
More people lost money waiting for corrections and anticipating corrections than in the actual
corrections. Well you ought to look in the mirror every day and say what am I going to do, if the
market goes down 10 percent. What do you do if it goes down 20? Am I going to sell? Am I going to get
out? If that's your answer you should be reducing it today. Well hey, this perfect record I think the
13 years I ran Magellan the market went down 9 times 10% or more. I had a perfect record I went
down more than the market. Every time it went down, I went down more so I just didn't worry about it.
The point is, would you say to yourself do I need this money in a year? Do I need this money
in 2 years? Do I need this money in 3 years? Longer term, stock market's been the best
place to be last 10 years, last 30 years, last 130 years. But if you need the money in 1 or 2
years, you shouldn't be buying stocks. You should be in a money market fund. Well I think emerging
markets that's not my expertise. But I mean these markets have been really hammered. You know and
they're a lot of countries are doing a lot better. You know I mean so i think there's potential
there that's not my expertise. But I think emerging markets could be a place to research.
I never looked at the economy. The only I look at what's happening right now.
You know what's going to happen a year from now? what's going to happen on interest rates?
I'd love to get next year's wall street journal. I pay an extra dollar for it, that'd be very helpful.
I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I want to find right now.
Well, I think anybody that's investing in the stock market -inaudible- you buy a company.
These are not lottery tickets, Behind every stock there's a company, if the company does well
over time, the stocks do well and vice versa. You have to look at the company
that's what you're researching. That's what we do at Fidelity that's what I do.
You could be an interventional cardiologist and you put in a heart pump. You say, wow, this
really is an incredible breakthrough, preventing shock, preventing you know hemodynamic support. It's
amazing, it's a breakthrough it's great it works. But you you're actually using it i mean
or you're you're assisting you're in the operating room seeing this breakthrough. That's you know you
start way ahead of most people that's an edge, you need an edge on something. Well the data now is
so good. I remember when nike, we own nike, we had to wait for the mail to come to our library. Now
when somebody reports earnings. It's telecast all over the world. They have an investor presentation,
they show a balance sheet, so information is much better. So, theoretically the individual's
edge has improved in the last 20-30 years versus the professional. The data is there it's free.
Well, I think a lot of people the problem is, they have so many prejudices, there's so many biases,
They won't look at a railroad, they won't look an oil company, they won't look at a steel company, you
know they they're only going to look at companies growing 40% a year. They won't look at turn-arounds. So
one thing you just don't have so many prejudices and biases I bought companies with unions. You
have to really be agnostic and a lot of people they're just not flexible. I think flexibility is —
and that's why fidelity had so many great fund managers. They're very flexible what they'll look at.