

"Focus on companies, not the stocks," he stresses, adding that on this basis limited partnerships, banks and even S & Ls can be sound investments. Lynch strongly favors stocks over other investment vehicles but insists that "investigative" research into a corporation's prospects, including credit checks and visits to the firm's installations, is essential.

Here he recalls with self-deprecating humor and disarming candor how he went about choosing winning stocks (and missing a few) for the $12 billion fund, which, during one five-year period in the 1980s, earned investors a 300% return. Until retiring in 1990, Lynch ( One Up on Wall Street ) was manager of the spectacularly successful Fidelity Magellan Fund.
