The Davis Dynasty Fifty Years Of Successful Investing On Wall Street

The story of the Davis dynasty is in many ways the story of Wall Street over the last half century John Rothchild 146 s sweeping saga chronicles the changing face of Wall Street alongside the financial escapades of one of America 146 s most successful yet unheralded investing families Three generations of the Davis family portfolio 150 patriarch Shelby Cullom Davis son Shelby and grandsons Chris and Andrew 150 take you through the canyons of Wall Street as they consistently beat the market with a growth at a reasonable price philosophy and a passion for investing Born into a middle class family in Peoria Illinois Shelby Cullom Davis was more interested in history than finance That all changed in 1947 when at age thirty eight he left his job as a New York State Insurance Department bureaucrat and plunged into investing using 50 000 of his wife 146 s money In the late 1940s as the Dow reeled at 180 and Wall Street ignored insurance stocks Davis went with what he knew best and built a dynasty from a plain vanilla portfolio of insurance stocks With proven strategies and a frugal spending philosophy Davis amassed a fortune from the postwar bull market of the 1950s through the glorious market of the 1980s He passed his experience on to future generations but left nearly 900 million in trust for conservative causes forcing his family to continue the dynasty on their own merits Son Shelby Davis took on Wall Street during the go go market of the 1960s He started a small investment firm and took control of the fledgling New York Venture Fund which beat the market twenty two of the twenty eight years he operated it Navigating theinflationary market of the 1970s was tricky but Shelby emerged unscathed Grandsons Andrew and Chris steered the Davis dynasty through the 1990s and continue into a new century as they use the refined financial strategies of the Davis family to challenge Wall Street and manage Davis Convertible and Real Estate Funds Al