During a thirty-year career in marketing and sales at Hewlett-Packard, Paul Accampo pursued a passion for
investing, reading over one hundred 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, while growing their
portfolios over two decades and learning skills that avoided 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 (in pre-
internet days!). During the 17-year period between 1983 and 2000, annually depositing $4000 into two IRA
accounts, Paul grew the $68K investment to $450,000, a 19%/year return on investment. He went to cash
when the market cracked in 2000.
In 2004, Paul described his methods in a book titled The X-Discipline: Financial Independence for the Web-
Savvy Investor, intended for x-generation children. Response was actually stronger from the boomer
generation, which recently has had a greater need to manage their own assets. The X-Discipline process has
evolved into today’s ETF-Discipline, which differs primarily by the shift away from mutual funds to exchange-
traded funds (ETF's).
Things changed after the markets recovered in 2003. Skittishness created by 50 percent losses led to more
volatility and rotation among investment categories. Investing technology and methods underwent massive
changes. ETF's replaced mutual funds as a short-term investment vehicle, and option trading by individual
investors exploded. All this was enabled by sophisticated trading platforms that became available to
individuals. Today 47 percent of individual short-term traders use options in their portfolios.
Investor fears of popping bubbles were again realized in 2007-8 when the markets suffered another 40%
decline, wiping out all the gains since 2000. Paul has refined his methods to deal with increased volatility and is
currently in the process of updating The X-Discipline with a series of white papers that will eventually become
his next book.
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.
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