James P. O'Shaughnessy was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where he attended Saint Thomas Academy as a youth. His fascination with the stock market began at an early age when he started to manually track characteristics common to the 30 companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Averagestock index. After studying international economics and business diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University, O'Shaughnessy graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1986. After graduating, O'Shaughnessy worked for a family-owned venture capital firm. During this time, his interest in quantitative research was recognized by a colleague who was on the board of directors with O'Shaughnessy at the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. The colleague suggested that O'Shaughnessy's research might be well suited for pension plan management. In 1988, O'Shaughnessy started O'Shaughnessy Capital Management, Inc. and began consulting to large pension funds and foundations. In 1991, O'Shaughnessy moved his family to Greenwich, Connecticut, to be closer to the New York area, where most of his business was located. O'Shaughnessy continued to apply his research of the stock market and, in 1994, his first book Invest Like the Best was published, followed by the first edition of What Works on Wall Street in 1997, How to Retire Rich in 1998, and Predicting the Markets of Tomorrow in 2006. O'Shaughnessy started his own mutual funds under the names Cornerstone Growth and Cornerstone Value in 1996. In 1997, the Royal Bank of Canada launched the RBC O'Shaughnessy mutual funds for Canadian investors. Currently, there are seven mutual funds in the RBC O’Shaughnessy funds family. In 1999, O'Shaughnessy started Netfolio, The Personal Fund Company, to offer individual investors the ability to build their own diversified portfolio over the internet. The company was closed in 2001. As part of Netfolio’s concentration on “personal funds” O’Shaughnessy Capital Management sold their mutual fund family to Hennessy Advisors in June 2000. In 2001, O’Shaughnessy and his team from O’Shaughnessy Capital Management moved to Bear Stearns Asset Management, where O’Shaughnessy served as a Senior Managing Director and the executive director of Systematic Equity. In 2007, O’Shaughnessy reached an agreement with Bear Stearns to spin his Systematic team out of BSAM to form O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, LLC. O'Shaughnessy is the former Chairman of the Board for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and currently serves as the Chair of the capital campaign for CMS. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees for Common Good.
Books authored by
Invest Like the Best: Using Your Computer to Unlock the Secrets of the Top Money Managers, 1994, McGraw-Hill..
How to Retire Rich: Time-Tested Strategies to Beat The Market and Retire in Style, 1998, Broadway Books..
What Works on Wall Street: A Guide to the Best-Performing Investment Strategies of All Time, 3rd Edition, 2005, McGraw-Hill..
“A Generational Opportunity.” Yahoo! Finance, March 17, 2009.
“Successful Active Stock Investing is Hard: Here are Seven Traits that I Believe are Required for Active Investors to Win in the Long Term.” Yahoo! Finance, March 13, 2017.
