Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings

From all Phil Fisher's books we can see he is a great investor and an integrated writer, who tells what he can about his investment philosophy. As his own words: frankness and bluntness.Some readers are bothered by the too long preface and introduction by his son Ken Fisher. It's not bad if you are interested in Phil Fisher's own life and personal characteristics. However Ken Fisher is quite different from his father's honesty. Ken Fisher looks like a salesman who focuses on selling products of his own investment company rather than an investor. Ken Fisher writes one book in one or two years in repeating the same useless things.Back to the book, the content is merit, which I don't want to repeat here. But some other reviewers say it's not practical for average investors to do 'scuttlebutt' with CEOs of the companies. It's true but the idea should get update in your heart. Remember this book was published in 1958 for the first time, by then Fisher can only use phones and visit the companies. But now we have internet and tons of information of which we should make good use. Scuttlebutt doesn't necessariely mean talking to CEOs and even it is the case you should very easily can see many things about the CEOs in the internet. Today it should be easier for us to do Scuttlebutt as closed as professionals can do.And this book should be read with other books on corporation valuation like Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis. It's a 5-star book doesn't mean you can only use this book to get rich. In Fisher's point of view, this should be mastered for sure.I would give myself a chance, if I cannot make real money by Fisher and Graham's book I would switch to index fund and invest my time on other things. Honestly I don't believe there are other books that could really make you rich if this book cannot.

It's easy to read the book, and after reading, you will definitely feel that you came out learning and knowing more than before.

If you are looking for an easy to read, fast-paced, bulleted, full of magic formulas, and a quick way to make a fortune book, please look elsewhere. If you are new to investing or even a seasoned investor who feels that you really don't have a grasp of the overall investing scheme, and if you are willing to plow through a lot of reading to extract some basic principles of investment analysis, then reading this book could be well worth your money and time. In his own roundabout way, the author will lay out for you concepts and answers to questions that you may not have considered relevant.Notwithstanding the hype evidenced on the book covers and the introduction by the author's son, a highly-regarded and well-known investment manager, the author has credentials that money cannot buy. That would be fifty years of being a successful , professional, private investment manager. In this book, he will bring that experience into play as well focusing on factors that are not covered by the mainstream financial media, or as he refers to them as "the financial community. "Here are some basic concepts that that the author will cover in his treatise: He will differentiate between a stock trader and stock investor; He will analyze what to buy and when to buy it; He will explain the movement of stocks in general or of a particular stock; He will argue the merits whether to follow the herd or to do otherwise; He will advise you whether to concentrate on intrinsic or extrinsic factors in evaluating a firm's stock; He will give you his opinion of the value of reading reports of the financial community.Here are three key questions that he will pose and answer: Should you buy cheap or otherwise? How long should you hold on to hold a stock? When should a stock be sold? The author will provide you with his views on the value of historical prices and earnings. He will correlate stock prices with interest rates. The closest the author will come to using numbers is when he lists his fifteen points of what to look for in buying a common stock. And after listing those points, he will highlight that one point that will override the other fourteen points in not buying the stock. In fact, that one point could very well summarize the book in a single word.As a reader, you will not get buried in a landslide of financial trivia but will learn general techniques and trends of investment analysis that often aren't considered by the statistically-oriented investors. However, in order to glean these gems of intrinisic stock information, you will have to have to forgo charts, illustrations, tables, and financial data commonly presented in stock analysis.