The article below was written about me way back in 1991. Nearly four decades later, I still advise real investors on compound interest, the Prudent Man Rule, and Ben Graham’s Margin of Safety. I do not speculate or invest on stock stories–never have. I invest on simple mathematics. All you need is time and a compound interest table. 

Dick Young

My top fund investments include three fixed income-centric funds, two gold funds, two dividend-centric equity funds, two inflation hedge energy funds, and one dividend-centric consumer equity fund for a total of ten major positions in all.

My fund volatility in the normal year approaches zero. 100% of my investing is based on the Prudent Man Rule and Ben Graham’s Margin of Safety. I do not speculate with the money I have worked a lifetime to earn, and I never have. I have never taken what most investors refer to as a significant loss. In fact, I can rightfully be referred to as a pretty boring investor.

Justice Samuel Putnam wrote the decision in Harvard College vs. Amory. Samuel Putnam. Image from page 56 of “History of Essex County, Massachusetts: with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men” (1888)

The Prudent Man Rule is based on common law stemming from the 1830 Massachusetts court formulation Harvard College v. Amory. The Prudent Man Rule directs trustees “to observe how men of prudence, discretion and intelligence manage their own affairs, not in regard to speculation, but in regard to the permanent disposition of their funds, considering the probable income, as well as the probable safety of the capital invested.”

Since I started our family investment management firm in 1989, I have operated under the assumption that the Prudent Man Rule to this day carries as much weight as it did in 1830. Common sense and prudence just don’t go out of style—ever.

I started in the institutional research and trading investment business at Model Roland & Co. on Federal St. in Boston in August 1971. Just up the street from Model were Fidelity Investments, and Wellington Management, both of whom I called on from my very first hours on the job.

Over five decades ago, Ned Johnson, aka “Mister Johnson,” ran the show at Fidelity. At Wellington, Jack Bogle, “Mr. Mutual Fund,” had not yet left Wellington to start Vanguard.   

My focus in the initial going was international research and trading, and remains so today all these decades later.  I still consider Fidelity and Wellington the industry leaders.

Both firms feature great cultures, industry-leading technology, well-rounded investment programs for individuals, families, and small businesses–the type of folk I hoped to be associated with throughout my investment career.     

Not a business day goes by that one of my associated companies is not involved with one or more of Fidelity or Wellington’s services.

I never would have expected, as I started out in August 1971, that I would be working with Fidelity and Wellington for over 50 years.

In Wellington’s case it, to this day, manages hundreds of billions of dollars in blue-chip, “prudent man rule” quality investment mutual funds. 

In the early ’90s, Wellington’s chief investor relations officer informed me that I directed more mutual fund assets Wellington’s way in a given year than did the rest of the combined American investment newsletter industry.

And now in 2025, with our little family investment management company requiring a cutting-edge custodian for our $1.8 billion-dollar conservative Boston-style management company we, not surprisingly, rely on Fidelity. 

Your Survival Guy, hard to believe, joined my family business over two decades ago. But before that, he was at Fidelity which he too recalls as being run like a family business. He writes:

When I joined the family business [Fidelity], I was Fidelity employee number twenty-something-thousand. I helped customers/participants of Fortune 500 companies manage their money in this fairly new savings vehicle known by its IRS code: 401(k). It turned out to be a thing. I’ll always remember how CEO Ned Johnson III ran the firm like the family business that it was.

In memos to employees, Mr. Johnson wrote to you as if you were seated around him at the dinner table. Business first, then, after some red wine and dessert (and maybe a piece of dark chocolate for digestion; because he was into taking care of one’s health) he’d leave you with something to think about—like his favored Japanese philosophy Kaizen, meaning constant improvement. Reading his memo in my little cubicle, not at his dinner table, I truly believed that through small steps—like compound interest—I could become the best version of myself. Then it was back to stuffing checks into envelopes.

We need to be reminded of this in times like these. Because when a video game company you typically see at the Mall can stop the market in its tracks, you need to figure out if you’re doing everything you can to protect your money. Are you with an investment company that treats you like a family member? Take a look at the brokerage firms selling their clients’ (I hope not yours) trading patterns to their other customers—these are household names that may (or may not) surprise you. Pay attention.

Action Line: Get your money with a firm that treats you like family. Too many investment firms are profiting from you, for example, with your information without you even knowing it. And don’t get me started on how they use your cash to lend out to others and pocket the profit.

P.S. Read more about how I got my start at Model Roland & Co. back in 1971, and gold’s 50-year price explosion.

Originally posted February 23, 2021.

Riding the yield curve and compounding decades of dividends. Practicing the faith of Ben Graham’s margin of safety, and honoring the Prudent Man Rule. I still write daily. You’ll find me on our family websites, so don’t miss out.

• www.youngsworldmoneyforecast.com
• www.youngresearch.com
• www.richardcyoung.com
• www.yoursurvivalguy.com

Roger Babson, entrepreneur und business theorist from Massachusetts, between 1905 and 1945. Photo by Harris & Ewing, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

After successfully predicting the crash that led to the Great Depression, Roger Babson was vilified as though he were its cause. At Doug Casey’s International Man, Jeff Thomas explains the history of Roger Babson, founder of Babson College, which I attended.

“[A] crash is coming, and it may be terrific. …. The vicious circle will get in full swing and the result will be a serious business depression. There may be a stampede for selling which will exceed anything that the Stock Exchange has ever witnessed. Wise are those investors who now get out of debt.”

The above words could easily have been stated by me or another of the (very) few others who currently predict the coming of crashes in the markets.

But they were not. The statements above were made by investor Roger Babson at a speech at the Annual Business Conference in Massachusetts on 5^th September, 1929.

Mr. Babson’s prediction was not a sudden one. In fact, he had been making the same prediction for the previous two years, although he, in September of 1929, felt the crash was much closer.

News of his speech reached Wall Street by mid-afternoon, causing the market to retreat about 3%. The sudden decline was named the “Babson Break.”

The reaction from business insiders was immediate. Rather than respond by saying, “Thanks for the warning—we’ll proceed cautiously,” Wall Street vilified him. The Chicago Tribune published numerous rebuffs from a host of economists and Wall Street leaders. Even Mr. Babson’s patriotism was taken into question for making so rash a projection. Noted economist Professor Irving Fisher stated emphatically, “There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.” He and many others repeatedly soothed investors, advising them that a resumption in the boom was imminent. Financier Bernard Baruch famously cabled Winston Churchill, “Financial storm definitely passed.” Even President Herbert Hoover assured Americans that the market was sound.

But, 55 days after Mr. Babson’s speech, on 29^th October, 1929, the market suddenly went into a free-fall, dropping 12% in its first day.

Today, most people have the general impression that on Black Friday, the market crashed and almost immediately, there were breadlines. Not so. In the Great Depression, as in any depression, the market collapsed in stages. The market did not reach its bottom of 89% losses until July of 1932.

Along the way, thousands of banks and lending institutions went belly-up. Thirteen million jobs disappeared.

And of course, the political leaders of the day did their bit. They implemented knee-jerk “solutions” that actually worsened the situation. Restrictive tariffs, gold confiscation, and a more dominant government were employed, just as they will be this time around.

So, as the market tumbled, we would imagine that Babson came to be praised by Wall Street for his insight, but in fact, the opposite occurred. Having accused him of being utterly incorrect in September, they later accused him of having caused the depression.

So, was Babson’s prediction a lucky guess? Did he simply observe the bull market and arbitrarily predict the opposite of the trend of the day to see what would happen? Not at all.

Such predictions are not guesswork, nor are they attributable to a vision seen in some crystal ball. Such crashes are entirely predictable. When any major bull market becomes overbought; when too many investors begin buying on margin because they can’t come up with the purchase price for stocks; when they then become even more obsessive and borrow money to buy on margin, the market has become a house of cards, waiting for the slightest breeze to come along.

Read more here.

By zobaair @ Adobe Stock

UPDATE 10.14.24: In September, the Federal Reserve did cut rates by 50bps and signaled another 50bps in cuts by the end of 2024. I’ve updated my Payday Indicator chart below so you can see the diminishing yield investors can expect on their money. 

Originally posted August 2, 2024.

The market believes the Federal Reserve is poised to cut rates in September and that the Fed could cut them by 75 basis points by the end of the year. Of course, this analysis comes after the market completely misjudged the Fed’s intentions about cuts in December 2023. So, take all predictions with more than a grain of salt. But comments from Jerome Powell and other Fed officials indicate they may be more seriously considering cuts now than last year. 

Long-time readers will remember my Payday Indicator, an indicator based on stock and bond yields that gives an approximation of the yield on a balanced portfolio. I have used this basic calculation as my guide since I graduated from Shaker Heights High School, listening to Chuck Berry in the late ’50s. I’ve watched this number for over six and half decades, and for most of the last two, investors weren’t getting paid nearly enough. Historically low Federal Reserve rates sapped the yield investors could expect to earn on their money. Only since 2022 has my indicator returned to something remotely normal, though nowhere near what it was in the 80s or even the early 90s. 

For now, you’re still getting paid to invest, but with the Fed poised to potentially cut rates, that may not last for long. Act accordingly. Click here to find your port in a storm and sign up for my email alert.