Paul W. Accampo

 

During a thirty-year career in marketing and sales at Hewlett-Packard, Paul Accampo pursued a passion for investing, reading over fifty books and countless articles. Making his first stock purchases in the 1970’s, he immediately learned flexibility, when investors at the time cast off stocks for gold, real estate and certificates of deposit. He and two close friends tried and discarded many investing ideas, growing their portfolios over two decades, while learning to avoid major damage from events like the Crash of ’87.

Paul’s extensive travel precluded managing a large stock portfolio. Having limited time, he focused on mutual fund investing, becoming an early “telephone switcher” and an early user of online mutual fund charts.

Noting the vast sums investors lost in the 2000-2003 bear market, Paul turned his attention to refining and explaining his methods, improving ways to control risk, refining sell criteria, discovering the best websites for obtaining fund data, and understanding volatility. Wishing to pass on the knowledge accumulated over a lifetime to his children and their generation, he has created a method of disciplined investing for Generation X.

An accomplished writer and speaker on technical subjects during his HP career, Paul has employed the analytical side of his nature (he holds an engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley) and his marketing and sales skills to explain a most complex human endeavor in straightforward terms.

He lives with his wife, Elaine, in Mill Valley, California, where he enjoys bicycling, skiing and volunteering his time in community activities.

 

PageOneLit: Where did you grow up? Who were your earliest influences, and why?

Paul W. Accampo: I grew up in San Francisco and developed a life-long interest in science and technology that drove me on to Berkeley where I earned a degree in electrical engineering. But in college and later the Army, my interests turned away from things, toward people and behavior. After reaching the goal of designing electronics, I felt like the job amounted to building stuff from a Tinker Toy set. Hiring into Hewlett-Packard in 1969 as "three man-months of engineering support" opened up one interesting job after another. My interests ranged out from engineering to marketing to management and ultimately into sales. In these jobs, I used my inclination toward science to become pretty good at understanding complex products like instruments and computer networks and expressing to less technical customers what they could do, why they were better than alternatives, and how they created a financial return. I did a lot of public speaking.

PageOneLit: What is your background? Have you always been interested in and worked in finance and investing?

Paul W. Accampo: I have never worked in finance or investing. The book is written from the perspective of the little guy who deals with brokers, advisors, attorneys, and accountants. Wall Street professionals like Peter Lynch [the former manager of the giant Fidelity Magellan fund] who write books to give advice to us come from an environment where they are investing other people's money, have large staffs, unlimited computing power, and are on the job almost 24/7. They also manage money for large numbers of people and are restricted in what they can do. For example, a portfolio manager cannot take his fund to 100% cash when the market starts to crash. We can.

 

PageOneLit: What is the X-Discipline?

Paul W. Accampo: "Disciplined investing for generation X." People in their thirties who adopt it will gain a huge head start in understanding markets, strategies, and specific tactics. They will learn early how to protect their capital during severe market downturns. The first lesson, however is that discipline is absolutely necessary to invest successfully. If I knew at thirty, what I know now….

 

PageOneLit: How is the X-Discipline different from typical financial advice? Can anyone utilize it?

Paul W. Accampo: This is the way my mentor, Don Cassidy, began the foreword:
"Fasten your seat belt! The X-Discipline by Paul Accampo is like nothing else you've read in your investment life. I say this with considerable confidence since my investing career spans nearly 50 years and my personal library of investment books approaches 700 volumes (not including the five I've written)…"

Although I had not seen my approach anywhere else in print, I was stunned at what Don said. Briefly, the book is unique in five ways: it focuses on funds, argues against the ideas behind typical financial planning, gets information from Web instead of other people's opinions, and instructs readers with specific recipes-right down to the mouse click. Also, nothing I have seen solves the time issue; The X-Discipline lets people with careers, who don't have more than an hour or so per week, invest effectively.

 

PageOneLit: Chapter 10 is titled "Why Your Broker Doesn't Call." Why doesn't your broker call?

Paul W. Accampo: Perform this test: ask your broker or advisor, "Will you call and tell me when it's time to sell?" Brokers used to be partners in investing, suggesting stocks to buy, mailing you the information, following your portfolio and telling you when to sell. This service is still available at "full service" firms-if you get the right person. Today many brokers aren't trained to know when to buy or sell individual stocks. They sell products like mutual funds that generate income from fees and "capture assets," to generate a steady income stream for their firm. Walk in with a wad of cash, ask them what to do with it, and many firms will recommend their "in-house" mutual funds, which are the most profitable investment-for them. These funds are rarely top performers.

 

PageOneLit: What do you hope to achieve with your book?

Paul W. Accampo: Enable people to retire regardless of where our economy goes. The book offers an alternative to poor financial advice, which is being increasingly challenged by experienced academics and investors. You are told to buy a set of good stocks or funds and hold on to them "for the long term." The advisor uses a formula to design a supposedly low risk portfolio. You "rebalance" it about once a year. This approach, like all strategies, worked great during the recent 20-year bull market. If you held on and lost more than 20% in 2000-2003, you know its inadequacies. People in their fifties and sixties don't have a "long term." A major crash can prevent them from retiring. The X-Discipline, by searching the Internet for the best performing funds, follows the money and shows you how to restructure your portfolio as the economy twists and turns. You look directly at market statistics and achieve independence from costly advisory services.

 

PageOneLit: What has the response from readers been? Has the X-Discipline worked for them?

Paul W. Accampo: People seem to get it. Fifty percent of audience members two whom I have presented bought the book. The friends with whom I developed the method have done well following their versions of the technique. Using a precursor of my current method, I went to 100% cash as the bottom fell out in 2000, limited exposure until May 2003, and then became fully invested again, to pick up on rally of that year. The strategy is not for everyone. You must commit about one hour per week, every week, to run the five-step analysis and spend five to fifteen minutes per day to check prices. You must execute when the signals trigger. I address some of the roadblocks in the book.

 

PageOneLit: What's the best financial advice someone else gave you?

Paul W. Accampo: One of the few complete strategies for investing in stocks is William O'Neil's, How to Make Money in Stocks. The X-Discipline applies many of his ideas. The second major influence was Market Wizards, by Jack Schwager. His stories of successful traders taught me to never try to predict the markets, cut losses quickly, measure and follow trends, have specific rules for buying and selling, and consistently follow the rules by controlling my emotions.

 

PageOneLit: What's next?

Paul W. Accampo: Getting the word out to people who want to take control of their financial future.

 

PageOneLit: What was the last book you read?

Paul W. Accampo: I'm a sci fi and Dune addict just read and the latest book in that series. I intersperse with occasional history and literature, such as Peter L. Bernstein's Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk.

 

PageOneLit: Do you have any hobbies? What are they? How do they enhance your writing? How do they enhance your work?

Paul W. Accampo: We like indy movies and volunteer for the Mill Valley film festival, through which I met my attorney and some investors. I love skiing and bicycling-their main contribution is maintaining health, as I move into my sixties.