As time goes on, I get more and more convinced that the right method in investment is to put fairly large sums into enterprises which one thinks one knows something about and in the management of which one thoroughly believes. It is a mistake to think that one limits one’s risk by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence… One’s knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself entitled to put full confidence.
John Maynard Keynes – British economist and investor (1883-1946), in a letter to Francis Scott, Chairman of Provincial Insurance on August 15th, 1934, Quotations book 2012
As Keynes’ assets were only £ 7,815 at the end of 1929, they reached their height with £ 506,522 in 1936. In the subsequent stock market crisis the assets collapsed to about £ 200,000. At the end of 1945 his assets were £ 411,238, which converted to current conditions would approximate € 22 million.