Howard Ruff - The maverick of the financial world

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Who is Howard Ruff? 

Born December 27, 1930, in Burkeley, California, as Howard describes it, 'with a wooden spoon in my mouth'. 

Being born at the start of the Great Depression, like a lot of households, Ruff's family was living in poverty. 

Howard showed great skill as a soprano singer and knew at an early age of 9 that this would be his path to chase. 

He got the opportunity to attend a scholarship program at the Curtis School of Music in Philadelphia. But because of his religious background (Howard was a Mormon), Howard's mom pushed that he should go on a 2-year mission.  

This was expected of young men in Mormon societies. 

Howard let the schooling opportunity slide, listened to his mom, and went on to perform his mission. 

Throughout Howard's mission, he obviously got rejected door-to-door, seeing this as one of the great lessons that formed his future career. 

After his mission, Howard continued his musical career, ending up as a singing sergeant for the Air Force. 

But because the Air Force symphony was only on tour for about 15 weeks a year, Howard had spare time to take a job with a stock broker, which changed his life forever. 

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First major setback

After being in the Air Force for several years, Howard's family moved to Denver so he could work full-time for his broker. During this part of his career, Howard stumbled across Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics, who taught him to read over 3000 words-per-minute. Later, Howard bought the company to start his business to teach the world to read faster and more efficiently. 

Eight years long, Howard had great success and taught more than 10,000 students in the San Francisco Bay area. 

Teaching speed reading skills to universities, high schools, junior high schools, and businessmen. 

The major success also led to one of his biggest mistakes of his early life, namely, withholding to accumulate savings or cash reserves, which made Howard's business go bankrupt. 

Leaving him with debt, which was legally discharged, but because of religious reasons, Howard still went on to eventually pay off the debt over a period of 12 years. 

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The moment it 'clicked'

Howard restarted his business career as a distributor for a multi-level marketing company called: The Neo-Life Company.  During this period, Ruff came across a book at the airport called How to Prepare for the Coming Crash by Robert Preston. 

Howard thought this book was about surviving a plane crash; Preston was obviously writing about a market crash. 

By reading this book, Howard started to learn about investing in precious metals as a hedge against rising inflation. 

He started to study various economics and came to the understanding that a deep recession was at hand. 

This resulted in him writing his first (self-published) book called: Famine and Survival in America which according to Howard, contained low-level business advice. 

Howard sold his book with a monthly update on the market for people who bought the book. Soon he was sending out 5,000 updates, which made him go broke again. 

But because of the (medium) success of his self-published book and linked newsletter, Howard started his for-pay newsletter, which he called, 

The Ruff Times. 

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The 'Ruff ' times'are over

Howard's newsletter was a major success, with over 100,000 subscribers and a hosted TV show called Ruff House. During the success, Howard felt the need to write a manual for new subscribers. 

This resulted in the best-selling book How to Prosper During the Coming Bad Years. With well over 2.6 million copies sold the book became a best-seller. 

Through the writing of this book, Ruff got the nickname The Prophet of Doom, which, in his words, plagued him a lot. 

This was because, at that time, hard-core survivalists were being brought into the media, which linked them to Howard's book. 

Mainly because Howard emphasised that you should keep food for a year. 

Even though the survivalists thought the world would literally end, Howard had a more sophisticated vision… 

From the year 1983 until 2000, Howard and his followers were on a roll financially. 

He became bullish on the stock market in 1983 and successfully predicted the peak of the dot-com bubble six months beforehand, after it collapsed in March 2000.  

During that period, Howard published other books such as Making Money and Safely Prosperous or Really Rich?. 

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Summary

As Howard humbly stated himself: I was just a very lucky guy with the right message at the right time. 

Howard realised that right before the dot-com bubble crash, he was at his peak as a professional. 

Howard's visions became more aligned with common views as he turned bullish on America, and that message was less interesting than his old maverick-ish views on financial markets. 

Howard learned to make a fortune in bad times but also in good times and had lost it twice, which gave him valuable insight to become the man he came to be. 

Sharing his knowledge with his followers, they thrived in the markets and prospered financially. 

Continuing to publish The Ruff Times for thirty-four years, Howard was never liked by Wall Street but proudly titled himself as a speaker for Main Street.  Acting as a voice for middle-class investors who felt they were being cornered by the big guys of Wall Street.

Howard, the so-called gold bug, continues to inspire many investors and financial guru's today. 

He challenged wall Street, and it turned to his favour. 

Howard Ruff died on November 12, 2016 at the age of 85 years old.

Let the story of Howard Ruff be an inspiration to dare to leave your comfort zone and let no one take you off-course.

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