Martin Zweig - The Conservative Growth Investor

Martin Zweig - The Conservative Growth Investor

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." - THOMAS JEFFERSON

Martin Zweig may not have been born a great investor, but it took him less time than perhaps any other guru we follow to start making himself into one.

Thanks to a birthday gift from his uncle of 6 shares of General Motors stock, Zweig was just 13 years old in 1955 when he began following the stock market. He started tracking GM and some other stocks, and before long, he was hooked. By the time he was in high school, Zweig writes in his book, Winning on Wall Street, he had made up his mind: He was going to become a millionaire, and he would do so by investing in stocks.

Millions of people have made a similar decision over the years. But unlike the vast majority of them, Zweig followed through. He began paying more and more attention to the market. Soon he was wowing his high school teachers with his knowledge of stocks. By the time he was in college, Zweig was buying and selling stocks, and as a graduate student he performed groundbreaking research in the field of stock analysis. It wasn't long before he'd reached the goal he'd set for himself in high school. In fact, you might say he obliterated it, becoming not only a millionaire, but also the owner of what Forbes reported was the most expensive apartment in New York City and the eighth most expensive home in the world - a $70 million penthouse that sits atop Manhattan's chic Pierre Hotel.

Given how fixated he was on beating the market at such an early age, it almost seems Zweig was destined to become one of the world's best investors. "Ever since I can remember," he wrote in Winning on Wall Street, "I have had an almost overwhelming desire to learn all I could about the stock market and to play it successfully. Perhaps my urge was not too different from that attributed to the mountain climber who must assualt the mountain just because it's there... From an early age I wanted to surmount the summit of the stock market, so to speak. It was a challenge I couldn't resist."

Zweig's intense desire and ambition may have been a gift of birth but his stock market success - his stock recommendation newsletter was ranked number one based on risk-adjusted returns by Hulbert Financial Digest during the 15 years Hulbert monitored it - wasn't simply due to natural ability. His development into a great investor was marked by years of study and hard work, and the ability to adhere to a strict, thorough investment strategy.

With some hard work and discipline of your own, you can make your strategy work for you too.