Skip to main content

John Templeton: Contrarian (2013 documentary)

The life of famed investor, Sir John Templeton is recalled by family and friends in Contrarian, a 2013 film directed by Mary Mazzio. You can watch the film online here, via Bloomberg, for a limited time.  

As an admirer of Templeton's investing acumen and wisdom, I was glad to check out this breezy overview of the legendary investor's career and to hear a few tales about his long and productive life (Templeton, who lived to be 95, died in 2008). 


However, those looking for a more critical look at John Templeton's business and philanthropic efforts may be disappointed. The documentary is wholly based on interviews with family and colleagues who fondly look back on his life and his habits and drives. You won't find much here that bucks the close-knit family atmosphere and retellings of cherished memories. In fact, I felt this biographical film bordered on hagiography. 

Having said that, there is still much to be gained from a look back at the ups and downs of Templeton's life and the lessons he accrued, and passed on, from his travels, his spiritual inquiries, his writings, and his long investing career. In fact, it might be a good idea to share this link with your family (especially your kids) and friends. You never know what good habits Templeton's lessons may inspire in others.

You can also find an excellent review of John Templeton's investing lessons in this video post from investor, Lauren Templeton (Sir John's grand-niece). There are some fantastic quotes and lessons within on savings, investing, and long-term contrarian thinking.

Popular posts from this blog

Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards: Scott Ramsey

Today we continue our series, "Lessons from Hedge Fund Market Wizards" , with a look at Jack Schwager's interview with Scott Ramsey of Denali Asset Management.  Ramsey, a futures trader and CTA who works on the island of St. Croix, spoke to Schwager about his first foray into the markets, his evolution as a trader, and the process he stands by to protect and grow his clients' money. 1) . Ramsey started trading in college. He was roped into the OTC metals market via a broker's ad in the Wall St. Journal. The broker charged customers a flat fee to buy and sell as much as they wanted in a particular market for six month. At the time, Scott was a novice and didn't know about futures, so he traded metals in this fashion through the inflationary run-up of the late 1970s. 2) . Scott had to rethink his trading strategy after he bought silver at $50 an oz., only to watch it collapse to $26 following a long string of limit-down days. He sold as soon as the market...

Finance Trends 2019 Mid-Year Markets Review

Email subscribers of the Finance Trends Newsletter receive the first look at new articles and market updates, such as the following piece, sent out to our email list on Sunday (6/14).   Hello and welcome, everyone! If you received our last email notice over the July 4th holiday, you'll know that this weekend's newsletter will serve as a mid-year market update and a follow-up to issue #29, " How to Reinvest in a Rising Market ".   Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, let's start the show...  Finance Trends Newsletter: Our Mid-Year Market Review When we last spoke, back in February, the U.S. stock market was rallying off its December-January lows. As the S&P 500 and Nasdaq reclaimed their 200 day moving averages in February and March, it became increasingly apparent that a lot of retail investors (and perhaps some institutional investors) were left under-invested while watching this recovery move from the sidelines.  The U.S. stock ...

How to "Pull the Trigger" on Your Trading Ideas

In our last post, I quoted hedge fund manager, Jim Leitner on the importance of following up on your investment ideas.  Today I'd like to follow up and share some thoughts on how you can learn to consistently "pull the trigger" on your best trading setups and investing ideas. In order to help you do that, we'll take from the best and offer up key insights from interviews with top traders and trading psychologists like Alan Farley, Brett Steenbarger, and Doug Hirschhorn .  Now before we get to their key insights on overcoming trading anxiety and pulling the trigger on your trading ideas, let's remember what Jim Leitner said in his interview: "Learn to love to listen to people and when you hear something interesting, follow up on it. Don't just think, "Well that's an interesting idea" only to find out a year later that the company you could've bought shares in is now up 500-fold. You never want to say woulda, coulda, shoulda...