Pay Attention To The Thin Cow

Since 1979 when Tom Quinn and Gene Hoots began investing together, there have been a major bull market, a gigantic bubble, two major bear markets, and heart-stopping stock market plunges. Through all of this, their firm has adhered to its investment philosophy. Pay Attention to the Thin Cow is a collection of CornerCap's writings through 2005. Running the $4 billion benefit funds of R. J. Reynolds worldwide gave the CornerCap founders an opportunity to study the investment industry "close up and personal." The experience became an investment laboratory where they were exposed to the best of the players in the institutional investment world - the consultants, the banks, and the mutual fund giants, the private advisory firms both in the US and abroad. After a decade of observing what worked and what didn't, they set up CornerCap, a firm that was based on the best practices of the investors they studied. These CornerCap commentaries consistently describe and reinforce those practices to the reader. They explain, in simple understandable terms, straightforward advice - advice that they always point out is "easy to understand, but very hard to do." While it is a collaborative effort, much of the book reflects the personal experiences of Gene Hoots. He has had the unique opportunity to work in the corporate world as a major customer of investment services for twenty plus years and then help create a small, entrepreneurial firm that is a supplier of those same services. He notes that size really doesn't alter the rules; the same investing principles apply to everyone. Along the way, he also offers opinions on the major issues he believes we are facing in America today, and an occasional view of corporate life from the inside. This book will not give the reader tips on becoming an overnight millionaire, or on day trading as a path to fame and fortune, or even how to spot a "hot" stock. Rather, it is a collection of essays from CornerCap's first fifteen years that the CornerCap people hope will make the readers a bit more informed about their own investments, and less vulnerable to all of the missteps that can steadily erode their efforts to accumulate wealth - consistent mistakes that can add up to huge losses over a lifetime. Avoiding these common investing mistakes can greatly increase the prospect of meeting long term financial goals, no matter whether you are saving for a secure retirement or your grandchildren's education. In Pay Attention to the Thin Cow, Gene Hoots shares his experiences from five decades in the corporate and investment worlds, from both the large and small viewpoint, sometimes as a participant and sometimes as an observant bystander.