📖John Templeton
Strong Balance Sheet Focus
Financial strength ensures survival through adversity.
Companies with strong balance sheets can survive adversity and emerge stronger. Financial strength is the foundation of long-term survival.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
John Templeton treats survival as the first objective. Limiting permanent capital loss, controlling leverage, and avoiding single-point failure are prerequisites for long-term compounding.
💎 Key Insight：Strong balance sheets protect through downturns.
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❓ Why It Matters
A single large drawdown can erase years of progress. Risk control is not timidity; it is the operating system that keeps compounding alive.
🎯 How to Practice
Define downside scenarios before entry, cap position size, avoid fragile leverage, and maintain liquidity so mistakes remain survivable.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Equating volatility with all forms of risk
Oversized positions without an exit plan
Using leverage to compensate for uncertainty
📚 Case Studies
1
Early Investment in South Korea (1962)
Templeton invested in obscure South Korean companies when the country was poor, politically unstable, and largely ignored by foreign investors.
✨ Outcome：Substantial returns as South Korea transformed into an export-driven Asian tiger, reinforcing his case for broad global diversification.
2
Buying at the Outbreak of WWII (1939)
Templeton borrowed money to buy 100 shares each in 104 depressed U.S. stocks trading under $1 as war began in Europe.
✨ Outcome：Within about four years, around 100 of the positions were profitable, several multi-baggers, establishing his bargain-hunting reputation.
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