Stock-Picking Lessons From a Pig Farmer

Editor's note: This was originally published on RealMoney. It is being republished as a bonus for TheStreet.com readers.

Today I want to introduce you to one of my oldest friends. I first met this fine fellow back in 1988 as a rookie stockbroker. I will spare you the horror stories of cold-calling with stock ideas from the research department. They gave us really cool scripts to call potential clients with, and they were effective to a degree.

The problem is the stock ideas were terrible. It was hard to build a practice selling stocks that had terrible fundamentals and were overpriced. My frustration level was high.

At the time, a man who became something of a lifelong mentor gave me an old photocopy of a 1978 article from Forbes magazine by John Train. It told the story of an investor who was having a hard time making money in the market. His broker introduced him to a client who had done extraordinarily well over the years. ...