Student Author: Logan Kane ’21
On Tuesday, January 12, 2021, the MICDS Student Investment Committee heard from Christopher Lenox, a Class of 1995 alumnus of the School and a Managing Director of Investments at Johns Hopkins University. He spoke to the group about his career, advice for evaluating individual stocks, tips for a career in finance, and more. Prior to his current position at Johns Hopkins, Mr. Lenox worked on hedge funds as well as on the endowments at Princeton and Brandeis. He discussed the importance of working for a cause you believe in and how he much preferred helping manage the investments of educational institutions than billionaires.
In addition to speaking about his career, Mr. Lenox discussed his advice for evaluating stocks. He talked about secondary sources like Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond and the EDGAR filings documented on the SEC website. Aside from recommendations for research, Mr. Lenox suggested the Committee ignore short-term ticker movements and combine analytics with a willingness to stand alone. He spoke about the importance of objective analysis, not being allured by possibilities, and optimizing rather than minimizing risk. Mr. Lenox also discussed tips for a career in finance, beginning with what he believed to be the four qualities that combine to make a great investor: intelligence, hunger, the capability to have an original thought, and the capability to act on it. He elaborated on this breakout, assigning an investor’s abilities (intelligence) to the first 80% of their success while their mindset (hunger, and the capability of unique thoughts and actions) to the critical last 20%. Finally, throughout the entire discussion, he emphasized the importance of being a student of business — how in order to be successful, an investor must devote themselves to a holistic study of business. This means not only studying a company’s charts and analytics but also its ability to navigate challenges and market trends.
Thank you to Mr. Lenox for sharing this wealth of knowledge with the Student Investment Committee!