JOHN TEMPLETON

Born in 1912 in Winchester, Tennessee during the Great Depression. Worked his way through Yale University.

Won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. This was during the 1930s, when having any education at all was a luxury.

In 1954, he founded the Templeton Growth Fund. It became one of the most successful mutual funds in history.

A $10,000 investment in 1954 was worth over $2 million by 1992 — that's a 14.5% annual return over 38 years, crushing the S&P 500.

He sold the Templeton Funds to Franklin Resources in 1992 for $440 million. Then he spent the rest of his life giving money away — over $1 billion to science, religion, and education through the John Templeton Foundation.

Templeton Growth Fund was the centerpiece. It was one of the first truly global mutual funds — investing in Japan in the 1960s when no American fund manager would touch it, in South Korea in the 1980s, and in emerging markets before the term existed.

The John Templeton Foundation, established in 1987, funds research at the intersection of science and religion. It gives away over $150 million annually.

The Templeton Prize — awarded for contributions to affirming life's spiritual dimension — carries a larger cash award than the Nobel Prize.

He also created the Templeton Fellowships at Oxford and funded numerous educational institutions across the developing world.

Templeton was the original global contrarian. His method: find the country or sector that every other investor has abandoned, do deep research, and buy the best companies at the cheapest prices.

He called it "investing at the point of maximum pessimism."

He bought Japanese stocks in the 1960s when Japan was still rebuilding from World War II. He bought South Korean stocks during political instability.

He invested in Peru, Argentina, and Turkey when no Western fund manager would set foot there.

His research process was exhaustive. He'd visit countries, meet management teams, study local economies, and compare valuations across 30+ countries before making a single investment.

Buying Japanese stocks in the 1960s. Templeton loaded up on Japanese equities when the country was still considered a war-ravaged developing nation.

By the late 1980s, Japan had the largest stock market in the world. His early positions returned 10-50x.

It was the greatest country-level investment call in mutual fund history.

Selling Japanese stocks too early. Templeton started reducing Japanese exposure in the mid-1980s as valuations climbed.

The Japanese market kept rising through 1989, hitting truly insane valuations. He left significant returns on the table.

But when the Nikkei crashed 80% over the next decade, his early exit looked prescient rather than premature.

Templeton believed in buying at "the point of maximum pessimism." When everyone is selling, when the news is terrible, when no one wants to own an asset — that's when the greatest bargains exist. Fear creates opportunity.

He was deeply religious and believed investing was a spiritual discipline. Patience, humility, gratitude, and contrarian thinking were all connected in his worldview.

He started every shareholder meeting with a prayer.

His famous maxim: "Bull markets are born on pessimism, grow on skepticism, mature on optimism, and die on euphoria."

Married twice. First wife Judith Folk died of a motorcycle accident in 1951.

They had three children. He married Irene Reynolds Butler in 1958.

She survived him. His son John Templeton Jr.

ran the Templeton Foundation after his death.

Sir John Templeton died in 2008 at age 95 in Nassau, Bahamas. He worked productively into his 90s.

Born in Winchester, Tennessee. Attended Yale University on a scholarship, graduating near the top of his class.

Then Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. During the Depression.

The academic achievement is remarkable given the era and his modest background.