Peter Lynch was one of the most successful investors of the 1970’s and 1980’s as the head of the Fidelity Magellan Fund. In 1989 he explained how he did it and why he thought retail investors could succeed with the same strategies in the bestselling book “One Up on Wall Street”. Given the meme stock exuberance of retail investors in the past few years, I thought the book might be due for a comeback.

Instead interest seems flat, and when I do hear Peter Lynch mentioned it is by institutional investors more than retail. But the book seems to me like it is still valuable, so I’ll share some highlights here. This one could easily have been written this year:

Where did the Dow close? I’m more interested in how many stocks went up versus how many went down. These so-called advance/decline numbers paint a more realistic picture. Never has this been truer than in the recent exclusive market, where a few stocks advance while the majority languish. Investors who buy “undervalued” small stocks or midsize stocks have been punished for their prudence. People are wondering: How can the S&P 500 be up 20 percent and my stocks are down? The answer is that a few big stocks in the S&P 500 are propping up the averages.

I see why the book hasn’t caught on with meme stock traders:

Nobody believes in long-term investing more passionately than I do… I think of day-trading as at-home casino care.

I’ve never bought a future nor an option in my entire investing career, and I can’t imagine buying one now. It’s hard enough to make money in regular stocks without getting distracted by these side bets, which I’m told are nearly impossible to win unless you’re a professional trader.

So where does he think retail investors have a chance to get “One Up on Wall Street”?

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