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Title: Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings by Philip A. Fisher ISBN: 0-471-11927-X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 28 May, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.59 (22 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: good but overrated
Comment: This is one of the most overrated business books of all times! The first time I read it, it was a torture. Then I picked it up for a second read because I figured that maybe I didn't quite get it the first time. How can so many people, including Warren Buffet, like it if it wasn't a good book? The second time I read it only confirmed my initial impressions. It is not too bad but it is clearly overrated.
Fisher's investment philosophy, the way I understood it, boils down to the following: Common stocks of good companies are worth buying at any price. Just find a good business with excellent growth prospects and buy the stock. The price will take care of itself.
This is the kind of approach that inflated the stocks of the so called nifty fifty in the early 1970s. Since Fisher's book was already a best seller by that time, I suspect that he was partially responsible for what has happened to the stocks of the nifty fifty.
Now, maybe I didn't quite get it. Maybe Fisher didn't really mean that a good business can justify any stock price, no matter how high. Then again, I read the book twice and if I couldn't get it then he didn't make it obvious enough. Only in the last part of the book (Conservative Investors Sleep Well) he suggests that value does matter. Unfortunately for many early readers, that part of the book was not written and added until long after the nifty fifty burst.
His approach toward finding future stars is not likely to work unless you do it during a bull market. Then again, almost any other investment strategy will make money in a bull market, even technical analysis. New technology developments and the state of future competition are too difficult to predict by any method. One of the few stars he ever found out was Motorola. It was a lucky shot because when he first found out the company, it was manufacturing TVs, not cell phones and pagers. Ironically, the company was soon kicked out of the television sets business for which Fisher chose them.
I don't know why Warren Buffet ever said that he liked Fisher's investment philosophy. I don't thing he is scuttlebutting for the future Intels and Microsofts.
Last but not least, the book is very poorly written. Fisher has absolutely no talent for a writer. His writing style is tortures for the reader. His editor probably gave up editing after the first few pages, crossed his fingers and sent the book to the printing press. Editing the book would have been equal to rewriting it. I don't think any editor would've had the patience and the time to do it.
To be fair, I like some aspects of Fisher's investment philosophy. He advocates long term commitment to strong businesses with good potentials. And, he wouldn't commit unless he had done a thorough investigation of the company. There are some other gems in the book such as his discussion of stock purchase timing but the reader has to dig them out from a pile of trivia. Three stars are well deserved.
Rating: 5
Summary: One of the two best books on investment ever written
Comment: There are only two books you will ever need to read to become a good investor. One of them is Graham's "The Intelligent Investor" (or better, Graham and Dodd's "Security Analysis"). The other is Philip Fisher's "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits".
It is telling that the man who combines the investment philosophies of both Graham and Fisher is widely acclaimed as the most brilliant investor alive today, Warren Buffet.
This is a book that you shouldn't just read once. It's a book you should read again and again. This is a book that you should read in cycles. Once you finish, you should read it again. It's short enough that you can read a chapter each night. This is a book that you should read until you can recite it word for word.
If you understand the principles in this book, and adhere stringently to Fisher's 15-point checklist for buying stocks, avoid his 10 don'ts, and purchase stocks at the right time, as he suggested how to do, you will almost certainly be investing in good companies.
If you then apply Graham's tests of value, you can avoid paying too much for those good companies. It is possible to have a good company but a bad stock (IBM is a great company today, and passes all of Fisher's criteria, but could you really justify buying it say $1,000 per share?).
When you do find companies that are good companies, but have bad stocks, keep an eye on them. What I mean by "bad stock" is that the stock -- in your opinion -- is priced too highly, even considering the company's excellent growth prospects (in other words, there is euphoria about it on Wallstreet that goes beyond reason). Eventually, the market will realize that, even for that great company, it was paying too much. The stock price will drop, and then, whenever everyone else is running from the company in fear of doom, you can scoop it up (assuming that it i still a good company).
Just as it is possible to have a good company but a bad stock, it is also possible to have a bad company but a good stock. You should not buy a stock just because it is cheap in PE, PEG, PS, or Price:book ratio. It is possible that the management may be so terrible that the company, in a few years time, may very well justify such current undervaluation. Even if the management is competent, it is still possible that the company' performance may justify that low price in a few year's time. When a stock is greatly undervalued by these measures, and has passed most of Fisher's criteria, then it is a great buy, because the market will eventually realize that management is brilliant and the stock should be priced higher.
Now, many have objected that Fisher's methods take a lot of time. Clearly, they do. So do Graham's. Certainly, using both methods in combination with one another will take a lot of time (you can use Graham's criteria first, or Fisher's, then apply the other set of criteria). If you don't have the interest or time to pursue this, then you should not be investing in invidiaul stocks yourself. Rather, you should find an advisor who does utilize these rules, or a mutual fund manager who does, and have him manage your money, if you want those kind of exceptional returns. In this case, you will still have to investigate the person managing your money, to make sure they're up to you're criteria, and stay on top of it, to make sure they continue to be. If you don't want to do that -- if you don't want to put in that effort -- then you should settle for ordinary returns, as Graham says. Invest in an index fund.
However, you should consider that there are not many stocks that will meet both Graham's stringent criteria, and Fisher's extremely stringent criteria. Of the tens of thousands of stocks, maybe 1,000 of them meet Graham's criteria. Of Those 1,000, maybe 50-100 meet Fisher's criteria. But, consider that you should only have to do this once, and thereafter only have to keep tabs on the companies (because you should have done it right the first time). Isn't several hours worth of work each night -- even for months -- worth finding a stock that will experience many hundreds of percent increase over 10 years?
To save yourself time, apply Graham's criteria first to eliminate fad stocks (dot-com), and other stocks that are priced too high. This will greatly cut down on your candidates. Then look at what's left and categorize it. Discard stocks from industries which you -- based on sound analysis -- believe aren't promising. Also discard those from industries which you don't understand. Of the remaining stocks, apply Fisher's criteria. To operate efficiently, apply his 15th criteria first: If there is any serious questions as to the management's trustworthiness to investors, don't even consider buying stock of the company, and don't waste any more time on it.
After reading these two books, you should know what criteria a company is to meet if it is a good investment, both Fisher's qualitative, and Graham's quantitative, criteria. You should apply the criteria that are easiest and quickest to filter through first. Then go through the criteria, progressively from more to less stringent. There's no point in wasting your time finding out about how great a company fairs on Fisher's first 14 criteria, only to find that it flatlines on the criteria of absolute importance (the integrity of management).
Rating: 5
Summary: Timeless approach, somewhat outdated details
Comment: This is a great classic book on investing. The author's language is at times somewhat hard, but the gist is absolutely crystal clear: invest in high-quality growth stocks and don't be afraid to buy them at a slight premium, plus investigate fundamentals, managements' ability and competitiveness very thoroughly before committing funds for very long holding periods (10 years or more). Fisher's intuitive, "scuttlebutt" approach to investing is certainly different (and more successful) than that of quantitative mathematical folks. As Warren Buffet often says: "It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong". It is impossible to quantify how popular a company's products will be in the future or how honest and able the management is. The Fisher's 15 points will help you assess these and other unquantifiable but nevertheless absolutely vital things about an investment.
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Title: The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book On Value Investing, Revised Edition by Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig ISBN: 0060555661 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Intelligent Investor: The Classic Bestseller on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham ISBN: 0060155477 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 22 January, 1986 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: The Essays of Warren Buffett : Lessons for Corporate America by Warren Buffett, Warren E. Buffett, Lawrence A. Cunningham ISBN: 0966446119 Publisher: Lawrence A. Cunningham (The Cunningham Group) Pub. Date: 11 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Interpretation of Financial Statements by Benjamin Graham, Spencer Meredith ISBN: 0887309135 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 15 January, 1998 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Security Analysis: The Classic 1940 Edition by Benjamin Graham, David Dodd ISBN: 007141228X Publisher: McGraw-Hill Trade Pub. Date: 10 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $60.00 |
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