André Kostolany

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André Kostolany (left) and Gottfried Heller (right) (1997)
André Kostolany (left) and Gottfried Heller (right) (1979)

André Kostolany Bartholomew (* 9. February 1906 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary as Endre Kosztolányi; † 14. September 1999 in Paris ) was a stock exchange and as financial expert and as a speculator occurring journalist , writer and entertainer with Hungarian origins and American Citizenship.

Drawing by André Kostolany - the ups and downs of the stock exchange

Life

Kostolany was born on February 9, 1906 as the fourth child of a wealthy Jewish industrial family in Budapest. Kostolany's father was an industrialist and produced spirits ( bitters ), which were sold under the name Hercules . His father exported this to America in large quantities before the First World War. The company had existed since 1830. Kostolany described the household in which he grew up as "very wealthy". In addition to the servants, an Austrian governess , a Germanist, was employed in the household, who was responsible for his upbringing during the Austro-Hungarian monarchy .

He was baptized a Roman Catholic. With the intention of becoming an art critic , he studied philosophy and art history , but then, at his father's request, completed an apprenticeship with his friend, French stockbroker Adrien Perquel, from the mid-1920s. In 1924, at the height of European inflation, he moved to Paris, where he gained his first experience as a stock market speculator. He successfully completed his traineeship and switched to Amerongen & Compagnie as a broker and consultant .

Escape to the USA

After the beginning of the Second World War , Kostolany fled to the USA via San Sebastian and Madrid in 1940, shortly before the German troops marched into Paris, because he was baptized Catholic but of Jewish origin. After receiving American citizenship, he took on the post of General Manager and President of the G. Ballai and Cie Financing Company in 1941 , which he held until 1950. At the same time he was the main shareholder there .

Return to Europe

A few years after the end of the war he returned to Paris . Here he met his future wife, Françoise Russell, whom he married at the age of 58. He set up secondary residences in Munich and on the Côte d'Azur . He described himself as a committed Hungarian patriot.

Book author and journalist

Kostolany acquired the status of a stock market guru through his numerous books, columns, lectures and seminars on the stock market. He wrote a total of 13 books that have been translated into eight languages ​​and sold around three million times. He published 414 columns in the German financial magazine Capital . Kostolany is also known for its stock market wisdom, which is repeatedly quoted by stock market commentators.

In his bon mots and columns of the 1970s, he railed against the IOS “swindling funds” ; During the 1980s, he was a vocal critic of the gold lobby , warning of commodity , oil depreciation, and hedge fund scams . Kostolany launched his last “crusade”, which he led until his death, in the 1990s against the Neuer Markt and against the banks that sold guarantee funds to investors . In addition, in the 8/1996 issue of Capital magazine, he explained in detail why the guarantee funds were misleading investors.

He gave lectures and television appearances at the World Economic Forum in Davos and in the Harald Schmidt Show . Many Germans know him from an Audi advertisement that ran at the end of the 1990s ("Think about aluminum stocks."). Together with Gottfried Heller , he co-founded the Munich asset management company Fiduka , one of the oldest independent asset management companies in Germany. He also worked there for many years from his Munich office.

Kostolany died on September 14, 1999 in Paris due to heart failure caused by pneumonia and was buried there on September 21, 1999.

Investment philosophy

Kostolany's philosophy is characterized by a profound aversion to classical economics and business administration. André Kostolany did not mean that one should only invest on the basis of intuition and imagination, but that one has to deal very intensively with the content of the respective investment and understand it. And then you just need the imagination to see a later positive development z. B. to be able to introduce a certain share. Because if everyone has already invested, you no longer need imagination to be able to imagine that this paper has already risen, but then it is usually too late. But if you only blindly buy cheap papers, the risk is high that these papers will remain cheap.

His last book, The Art of Thinking About Money , was published posthumously in February 2000 , in which he dealt with the cyclical nature of markets and stock market psychology and which, in his opinion, outlined the fundamental mechanisms of the stock market: For the short-term nature of market developments, he has shaped the financial scene to this day used term of "shaky hands", the cause of overbought markets; In contrast, in oversold markets, what he calls “tough guys” hold the majority of the shares. In the medium term, he considered the supply of money to the economy and stock market psychology to be the most important determinants of share price movements. In the long term, however, the share prices of companies would correlate with their economic development and profit situation. According to Kostolany, every bull and bear consists of three phases: correction, adjustment and exaggeration.

Theses on gold coverage

Kostolany was a strong advocate of the thesis that the gold price must be decoupled from currencies, otherwise the economy would be damaged. According to Kostolany, investing in gold is "dead capital" and deprives the economy of part of the necessary liquidity, since the investment capital tied up in gold cannot be used for investments. In this context, he repeatedly pointed out that after the currency reform of 1948 , the Deutsche Mark rose to become one of the strongest currencies in the world without any gold backing over the course of the following decades .

Quotes

“I can't tell you how to get rich quick; But I can tell you how to get poor quickly: by trying to get rich quick. "

- André Kostolany

"Those who have a lot of money can speculate, those who have little money must not speculate, those who have no money must speculate."

- André Kostolany

“Buy stocks, take sleeping pills, and stop looking at papers. After many years you will see: you are rich. "

- André Kostolany

Works

Web links

Wikiquote: André Kostolany  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://img.boersenverlag.de/reports/kostolany-web.pdf
  2. ^ "Kostolany´s Wonderland of Money and Stock Exchange", Seewald Verlag, ISBN 3-512-00639-6 , p. 20
personal data
SURNAME Kostolany, André
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kostolany, André Bartholomew (full name); Kosztolányi, Endre (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American financial expert, journalist and writer of Hungarian origin
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH September 14, 1999
Place of death Paris