Retired portfolio manager Payson Y. Hunter announces the release of his new book, The Investors’ Advocate: Practical Counsel for Successful Investing. Drawing from a forty-year career in finance and public accounting, Hunter provides a "tool for thinking" designed to protect investors from the single biggest hurdle to wealth creation: their own emotions.
The Investors’ Advocate is not a collection of "hot tips" or market predictions. Instead, it follows the author’s journey of managing investment accounts for twenty-five years without a single client complaint, even during periods of extreme market turmoil. The book serves as a formal attempt to share the fundamental principles elite investors use to capture value while others lose their heads to fear or greed.
The manuscript explores several critical themes that challenge mainstream "worldly wisdom" in the financial industry. Hunter argues that the investor’s emotions are the primary obstacle to success, as most people make decisions based on feelings and then use reason to rationalize them later. To counter this, the book introduces the "Deals of the Dow," a simplified version of Hunter’s proprietary process that uses the Graham Formula to identify high-quality companies selling at a significant discount to their intrinsic value. Furthermore, the author challenges the myth of over-diversification, noting that the majority of diversification benefits can be achieved with a portfolio of only five to ten uncorrelated securities. A central theme is the absolute necessity of a written Investment Policy Statement (IPS) to serve as a sound intellectual framework and an emotional anchor against the "madness of crowds".
Readers of The Investors’ Advocate will gain a practical framework for action that turns adversity into opportunity. By following the book’s "Eight Pillars" for managing risk, investors learn to replace panic with a repeatable, businesslike process.
"To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information," Hunter writes, echoing Warren Buffett’s mentor Benjamin Graham. "What is presented here is designed to help develop a fundamental framework for making investment decisions and the implementation of a process of due diligence to protect that framework from being eroded by the investor’s own emotions".
The Investors’ Advocate is available in print and digital formats.
About the Author
Payson Y. Hunter is a retired portfolio manager and former accountant with decades of experience in managing investment accounts on a discretionary basis. His career was defined by a commitment to transparency, due diligence, and the use of proprietary processes to replace emotion in investment decision-making.