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Lawrence Wegeman, Jr. This book served me well from the early 1960s until now. It stood out from the other financial books then and does today.
He gives clear advice of the matters to be addressed. Like the dangers of so called safe investments. You love to communicate and hate balance sheets: then this book is for you. Actually doing it is work, a lot of work.General advice is given also. You get three different books written at different times: (1) "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits" (145 pages)(2) "Conservative Investors Sleep Well" (50 pages)(3) "Developing an Investment Philosophy" (57 pages)Also the introduction of his son Kenneth Fisher is of considerable size (23+27 pages).If you are interested in biographies or in financial history you also find a lot of interest.In total a very useful and entertaining book and a totally different and complementary approach to value investing then the great Security Analysis: The Classic 1934 Edition. The Theme of "Common Stocks" is: How to pick low risk, high potential growth stocks by thoroughly talking to people (scuttlebutt). Typical conversational partners are customers, employees, suppliers, top management.
Fisher clearly says that growth stocks (stock in a company with excellent future prospects) at value prices are the gems to look for. I took notes on each chapter as I read it as a way to keep myself focused on what Fisher is trying to say. You will need to do that work on your own by learning to read financial statements, investigate management, and learn about a company's business and industry. Rather, some of the concepts are deep enough that they take a careful reading and then a going over for the gems within.In this book Fisher outlines a general philosophy for investing.
To the reviewers giving this book one star, I ask you to consider other investment books on the market. Growth stocks at fair prices are a second best choice and growth stocks at high prices may be acceptable under certain conditions. What he does provide you is a framework that will help you avoid making as many costly mistakes in your learning process or even never realizing that there are fundamentally sound and unsound methods of investing.To the reviewer stating that Fisher advocates growth stocks at any cost, this assertion is simply untrue. Most are full of hype, bad advice, and soon to be outdated methodologies.
He does not provide you with the tools necessary to implement the philosophy. Poorly run companies should almost never be purchased, because even though they may be "cheap", information is more likely to come to light that will make that "cheap" price very costly. This book, along with The Intelligent Investor can stand the test of time.Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits takes effort to read. I don't think this makes him a poor writer.
Follow the principles shown here by many succesful worldwide investors. Highly recommended. Undestand the basics on it to develop a succesful approach in investments.
The sentences were too long (3-4 lines) all connected with "by which", "in which" etc. I often said "come on cut to the chase." while reading. Common stocks and uncommon profits explained in a very common sense. I couldn't read more then 3 pages at a time. Anyway after my second attempt to finish the book at around 2/3 the way to the end, I gave up and put it in the shelf. I am sure back in the 50's the "15 points" explained in this book was a great deal but now in 2000's it has very little value although the points are still perfectly valid. My biggest problem with this book was ,however, that it was too boring to read.
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