December 27, 2013.

(The headline photo was an illustration of a man talking to a crowd.)

The Best Financial Advice I Ever Got (or Gave)

"Real sugar. Not saccharine, sugar. And here's a loaf of bread proper white bread, not our bloody stuff----and a little pot of jam. And here's a tin of milk----but look! This is the one I'm really proud of. I had to wrap a bit of sacking round it, because----"

The holidays are a time for relaxing, helping the less fortunate, showering family and friends with love and attention—and, sometimes, for smiling and nodding through unsolicited stock tips from an overbearing relative who has been sampling the eggnog.

But she did not need to tell him why she had wrapped it up. The smell was already filling the room, a rich hot smell which seemed like an emanation from his early childhood, but which one did occasionally meet with even now, blowing down a passage-way before a door slammed, or diffusing itself mysteriously in a crowded street, sniffed for an instant and then lost again.

But good advice can make careers and forever change lives for the better. So The Wall Street Journal asked an array of prominent people who manage, invest, study and write about money to share the single best piece of financial advice they ever received----or gave.

"It's coffee," he murmured, "real coffee."

The respondents included investors who collectively have earned billions of dollars for clients and themselves; founders and owners of businesses that are household names; and Nobel laureates who shaped the world's understanding of the forces that drive the stock market.