Three top investment tips from Keynes

It's a great shame that economist John Maynard Keynes is best known for his controversial stimulus policies, says Tim Bennett. Because he was also a brilliant investor.

These days, economist John Maynard Keynes is best known as the inspiration for controversial policies meant to stimulate growth, such as quantitative easing (QE). That's a pity. Because in the debate over whether he was right or wrong, it's easy to lose sight of a rather more interesting side of Keynes his investment prowess.

In 1924, Keynes became bursar of King's College, Cambridge, taking responsibility for managing and growing its funds. From an initial £30,000, the fund grew to £380,000 by the time he died in 1946. That's an annual compounded return of around 12% during a period when the British stockmarket fell by around 15%.

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Tim graduated with a history degree from Cambridge University in 1989 and, after a year of travelling, joined the financial services firm Ernst and Young in 1990, qualifying as a chartered accountant in 1994.

He then moved into financial markets training, designing and running a variety of courses at graduate level and beyond for a range of organisations including the Securities and Investment Institute and UBS. He joined MoneyWeek in 2007.