Bernard Baruch: the world’s greatest investors
when it came to trading, Bernard Baruch was an aggressive speculator, says Matthew Partridge.
Bernard Baruch was born in 1870 in Camden, South Carolina. After graduating from City College of New York with a degree in classics, he became a banker's apprentice. He then became a broker, and started trading for himself. By 1897 he had made enough money to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and set up his own brokerage. In 1916, he became involved in politics, advising President Woodrow Wilson and later Franklin D Roosevelt. He died in 1965, aged 94.
What was his strategy?
He was particularly interested in mining companies, and would make highly leveraged short-term bets based on his own fundamental, often contrarian, analysis, while using stop-losses to limit his downside. Indeed, he later described the ability to cut one's losses as the most important element of successful trading.
Did it pay off?
What was his best investment?
What other advice did he have for investors?
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