John Neff: the world’s greatest investors

Rather than picking the cheapest stocks, John Neff only invested in those that he believed had good business prospects.

Dr Matthew Partridge's avatar
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John Neff: focus on value and ignore the crowd

John Neff was born in 1931 in Ohio. He graduated from the University of Toledo and got a job as a securities analyst at the National City Bank of Cleveland. After doing an MBA at Case Western Reserve University, he became the portfolio manager of Wellington Management Company in the 1960s, running its Windsor fund a year later. He would also go on to run the Gemini and Qualified Dividend funds, retiring at the end of 1995.

What was his strategy?

price/earning (p/e) ratios

One rule of thumb he used was to add the growth rate (in percent per year) and the dividend yield together. If the resulting number was double the p/e ratio he would investigate the company in more depth. However, this wasn't an absolute rule and he frequently invested in stocks that didn't pay a dividend.

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Dr Matthew Partridge
Dr Matthew Partridge
Shares editor, MoneyWeek

Matthew graduated from the University of Durham in 2004; he then gained an MSc, followed by a PhD at the London School of Economics.

He has previously written for a wide range of publications, including the Guardian and the Economist, and also helped to run a newsletter on terrorism. He has spent time at Lehman Brothers, Citigroup and the consultancy Lombard Street Research.

Matthew is the author of Superinvestors: Lessons from the greatest investors in history, published by Harriman House, which has been translated into several languages. His second book, Investing Explained: The Accessible Guide to Building an Investment Portfolio, is published by Kogan Page.

As senior writer, he writes the shares and politics & economics pages, as well as weekly Blowing It and Great Frauds in History columns He also writes a fortnightly reviews page and trading tips, as well as regular cover stories and multi-page investment focus features.

Follow Matthew on Twitter: @DrMatthewPartri

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