How One Failed College Assignment Started It All I recently got my daughter settled in college, and I couldn’t help but think back to my own college days because one particular assignment set me on the path that has defined my life. I was still a teenager at the time, but that one assignment changed my life… and the lives of other investors who have since benefitted from the assignment I did not complete successfully. One of my professors told me to create a computer model that would mimic the SP 500. His belief was that index investing – putting your money in funds that track indexes like the SP 500 – was the best way to invest. Using Wells Fargo’s mainframe computers, I got to work. When I finished the assignment, there was a problem… My system didn’t just mirror the SP’s performance, it beat it! It was the best thing that could have happened to me, and I was hooked. Why would I settle for merely keeping pace with the market if I could do better? From then on, I devoted extensive time and resources to testing, refining, and validating my findings.