Super Stocks

by Kenneth L. Fisher

Overview

Target the Super Stocks that deliver huge returns

One of the most successful investing books ever published, Super Stocks showed investors how to use innovative techniques and fundamental analysis for valuing stocks and predicting future profit margins.

You'll gain valuable insight into Fisher's original thinkin for valuing stocks and predicting future profit margins. A pioneer in the use of the Price Sales Ratio-a powerful analytical tool-Fisher regales readers with instructive tales of the businesses he invested in and profited from.

Super Stocks gives a historical perspective on how Fisher successfully researched companies and stocks—who he saw and what he asked—to get a better read on profitable returns.

“As rich in investment war stories as it is in knowledge.”-The Motley Fool

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071596305
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	10/12/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Kenneth Fisher is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Fisher Investments, an independent global money management firm with more than $30 billion in assets. He pioneered Price Sales Ratios in stock analysis and is the bestselling author of The Only Three Questions That Count.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Acknowledgments-How This Book Came to Pass     xv
The Anatomy of a Super Stock
Get Rich with the "Glitch"     3
Analyzing Super Stocks-In Search of "The Perfect Glitch"
What Makes the Glitch Twitch?     17
Tough Times Separate the Men from the Boys: A Warning First
They'll Bitch at the Glitch
"Success Has a Thousand Fathers, but Failure Is a Bastard."
Some Companies Make It-Some Don't
Valuation Analysis
Conventional Approaches to Stock Valuation-The Riddle: Ten Times Earning's Is too High and a Thousand Times Is Too Low     31
The Problem: If Left Field and Right Field Don't Work, Get Out of the Stadium
Earnings-Based Methods: The "Underpriced, Low P/E" School
The Growth Stock School of Thought
The Ben Graham Approach-"Remarkable but Not Enough."
The Solution
Pricing Is Everything-Use Price Sales Ratios     39
Bulls, Bears, and Turkeys
Understanding Price Sales Ratios (PSRs)
What Does the Relationship between Price and Sales Mean? A Case in Point: The Datapoint
A Super Stock Is a Super Company Bought at a Low PSR Relative to the Company's Size
What Is a Low PSR, What Is a High PSR, and Why? Studying the Solution
Getting the Right Slant on Stocks
Swimming Upstream as You Grow
A Fear of Heights
The Threshold of Never-Never Land
The Economics of Going Public
Price Research Ratios-The Cost of a Good Set of Brains     61
The Problem-Landing a Whale
What is the Price Research Ratio? Research Is Just aCommodity
Market Research Wags Technical Research: The Solution
Rules for Using PRRs
Problems with PRRs
Applying Price Sales Ratios to Nonsuper Stocks     75
PSRs, the Broader Concept
Lessons of the Past-PSRs in the Bull Market of the 1960s and Early 1970s
PSRs and the Great American Smokestack Stock
Use PSRs as THE Stock Market Timing Device
Fisher's Rules for Timing the Stock Market
PSRs in the "Garbage Dump" of the Stock Market
Fortunes from Failures-The Myth of the 1930s     95
Through the Time Warp
IBM Not a Growth Stock? Spectacular Profits with Low-PSR Stocks
What about All Those Great Companies?
Fundamental Analysis
Super Companies: The Business Aspects-Stalking Excellence     109
Basic Business Traits
Growth Orientation
Marketing Excellence: Quanta-Ray: "Underpromise; Overperform"-Customers Are the Best Salesmen
Is Management in Control of Marketing? How Are Sales and Service Handled? Find the Unfair Advantage: Does the Customer Get the "Best Bang for the Buck"? Labor Relations Are Critical
Financial Controls-Question the Answers
Avoid Risk-Avoid Competition     127
David and the Anteaters
Avoid the Places Anteaters Hang Out
The Japanese Zap Large Markets-Sometimes
Small (and Different) Is Beautiful
Remember Your Teddy Roosevelt-Walk Softly but Carry a Strong Balance Sheet
Who Stands behind the Financials? Who Has Controlling Interest?
Margin Analysis-All I Really Want in Life Is an Unfair Advantage     135
The Problem
Some Definitions
Look for Clues from the Past: Who Kicked the Sleeping Dog? When in Doubt, Ask! From Rags to Riches
Something Rather Unique Must Be Done
All I Really Want in Life Is an Unfair Advantage: High Market Share Can Be an Unfair Advantage
Relative Market Share Is More Powerful Still
Margin Analysis Continued-Formulas and Rules     149
A Forecasting Formula for Margin Analysis: Some Examples
Rules for Margin Analysis
No One Is Perfect-You Don't Have to Be
Dynamics
Into Action-There's Method to the Madness     159
Where Is the Magic Key? Opportunities Are Seldom Labeled: Scan for Low PSRs
Scan for Money-Losing Companies
Scan for Qualitative Assessments of Superior Companies
The Best Research Facilities Cost Nothing to Use
Take an Important Side Step in Time
The Key to Esoteric and Little-Known Publications
Avoid Competition from Wall Street
Visit the Company: Getting Your Foot in the Door
Contact Customers, Competitors, Suppliers, and Investment Professionals
It's Time to Reach a Conclusion
Bringing It All Back Home-When to Sell     179
When Is the Bloom off the Rose? Beware of Heights: There Is Nothing Like a Good Long Ride
After You've Sold, You've Reached the End of the Line
Verbatim Corporation-Disco Baby     183
Early History: The President Is Gone
A Competitor by Comparison
The Stock and the PSR: Taking the Plunge
The Competitive Nappers Wake Up
Smiling All the Way to the Bank
California Microwave-Ride the Wave     209
Early History
This Company Was Worth Further Investigation
Oops! The Other Shoe Drops
Taking the Plunge
Riding the Wave
New Blood
Everybody Loves a Happy Ending
Appendixes
Appendix 1     235
Appendix 2     239
Appendix 3     241
Appendix 4     245
Appendix 5     249
Appendix 6     253
Index     263