John Templeton / 1965 / Equity Long
The world was larger than the benchmark.
John Templeton and a long-term Japanese-equity case.
Before the outcome was obvious.
The Templeton record provides a counterweight to the crisis shorts. The workbook models a long investment in Japanese equities around industrialisation, held for roughly twenty years. Here the question is what patient ownership can capture when a market is overlooked. The dates and dollar figures are an illustrative long-horizon model, not a reconstructed portfolio with dividends, currency translation and changing holdings.
What could have gone wrong
Cheap assets can stay cheap, foreign-exchange moves can erode gains, and a broad economic success need not translate into attractive shareholder returns.
Look beyond familiar markets, then distinguish a growth story from the price paid to own it.
Put the thesis to the test.
Change the assumptions and watch the arithmetic update. These are simplified scenarios; they do not recreate the instrument’s pricing or the path of the trade.
How this model works
Profit ratio = profit ÷ stated position. Exposure ratio = stated position ÷ fund assets. Neither is a measure of maximum loss or a net investor return.
The workbook’s simple annualisation is profit ratio × 365 ÷ duration = 50%. It is linear, not compounded, and is not a repeatable annual return. Fees, financing, collateral, premium carry and changing exposures are not modelled.
What these figures mean.
Source: Legendary Trades Models, Master Comparison!A21:L21; Trade P&L Models, case 18. The following are original workbook inputs, preserved for transparency. They are estimates, not independently audited results.
- Workbook position
- $50m
- Workbook “gross profit”
- $500m
- Workbook duration
- 7,300 days
- Workbook fund assets
- $100m
- Workbook fund return
- 12.5%
- Workbook position ROI
- 1,000%
The fund-return field is a separate source claim, not a calculated result of this trade. Its reporting period and gross/net basis are not independently established here. Model ratios are recalculated from inputs rather than copied from rounded source ROI values.