Fire Your Stock Analyst: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own [Hardcover]

Harry Domash (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2002

In Fire Your Stock Analyst!, San Francisco Chronicle investment columnist Harry Domash presents a start-to-finish approach to stock selection that draws on winning techniques from the world's top money managers, uses readily available information, and is easy to implement. Learn how to select stocks based on value, growth, and momentum strategies; assess valuation, profitability, risk, business plans, management, and upside/downside potential; decide when to sell; and much more. You'll find everything you need to become a more successful - and self-reliant - investor!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

In Fire Your Stock Analyst!, San Francisco Chronicle investment columnist Harry Domash presents a start-to-finish approach to stock selection that draws on winning techniques from the world's top money managers, uses readily available information, and is easy to implement. Learn how to select stocks based on value, growth, and momentum strategies; assess valuation, profitability, risk, business plans, management, and upside/downside potential; decide when to sell; and much more. You'll find everything you need to become a more successful - and self-reliant - investor!

About the Author

HARRY DOMASH publishes Winning Investing, a monthly stock and mutual fund advisory newsletter. He also teaches stock and mutual-fund analysis classes, is a frequent speaker at the American Association of Individual Investors' meetings, and conducts fundamental analysis workshops. Domash's investing tutorial column appears in the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. His fundamental analysis columns have appeared in Business 2.0 magazine. He is the author of The Everything Online Investing Book: How to Use the Internet to Analyze Stocks & Mutual Funds. He runs the www.winninginvesting.com site for personal investors.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (September 21, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130353329
• ISBN-13: 978-0130353320
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Harry Domash is best known for his investing tutorial columns that have appeared regularly in print publications such as Business 2.0 Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers, and on numerous Web sites including MSN Money and Morningstar.

He publishes DividendDetective.com, a site specializing in high-dividend investing, and WinningInvesting.com, a free site featuring "how to" investing tutorials and other resources. Domash conducts fundamental analysis workshops and is a frequent speaker at Money Show investing seminars in Las Vegas and San Francisco, and at the American Association of Individual Investors' meetings. His books include The Everything Online Investing Book: How to Use the Internet to Analyze Stocks and Mutual Funds.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So good I paid retail at the bookstore..., September 27, 2002

By 

Rob Ryley "Robert" (Northeast NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Fire Your Stock Analyst: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own (Hardcover)

Let me be honest about my biases. I strongly prefer technical analysis when it comes to analysing stocks. Price is determined by PERCEPTIONS about fundamentals.

By studying price and volume, the chartist can understand what the general market sentiment is regarding these fundamentals, and figure out, with a reasonable degree of confidence, which stocks to buy, and which to sell. With enough capital, skill, and the discipline to cut inevitable losses, you can make money.

Despite the benefits of technical analysis, I can see the value (no pun intended) in understanding the fundamentals on their own. Fundamentals complement the technicals, and any rational investor will compare market action with fundamental data to come to a profitable conclusion.

My problem: I've tried to read various books on fundamental analysis, but most put me to sleep.

This book is different. It is packed with solid, step-by-step directions on how to perform your own fundamental analysis. Tips include screening for candidates, determining a stock's current valuation, setting a target price, and how to determine if the company is a potential Enron or Kmart. This is far from an exhaustive list of what you will learn.

Best of all, these techniques have been taken from money managers with a track record of beating the S&P, from Richard Dreihaus to the infamous short seller Jim Chanos.

Domash provides a highly readable, useful, and important book for the intelligent stock investor. Whether you are an investor or a trader, you will understand how those who move the markets tend to think. Read it if you want to make money.

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A thorough, organized method of stock analysis, November 4, 2002

By 

Rich Duprey "foolishcop" (Teaneck, NJ United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fire Your Stock Analyst: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own (Hardcover)

In clear prose, Harry Domash lays out a concise step-by-step guide to evaluating and analyzing growth and value stocks. I had no intentions of buying a book when I entered the store, but after looking over this book I was compelled to buy it. Yes! Another one who gladly paid retail. In only a week's time the pages are dog-eared and highlighted.

Mr. Domash covers in depth each of the tools you need to find and evaluate good stocks. Not only does he cover the topics you'd expect a book like this to cover--profit margins, ROE and ROA, and inventory and A/R analysis--but he also gives you tools to look at the quality of a company's management, whether it has a solid business plan and whether it's a candidate for bankruptcy, but also some technical analysis tools too.

He doesn't stop there though. "Fire Your Stock Analyst!" also gives you a complete tutorial on how you would go about using all the tools he provides to analyze growth stocks and value stocks. Moreover, he shows you exactly where to find all the information you need. And gives you a useful, rational method for valuing the stock, i.e., determining a price to buy at and fixing a target price. This is as complete a process as you could hope to find.

Again, the book is well worth the price at retail--and a steal at the discount being offered here!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid guide to fundamental analysis, September 18, 2006

By 

Q (Q Continuum) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fire Your Stock Analyst: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own (Paperback)

This book will help you to evaluate and decode the stock information available on free financial websites likeYahoo! Finance and MSN Money. This is a thick book, very detailed and in-depth, with tons of useful information to help you can find the stocks that will generate solid returns. For example, Domash explains the difference between Return on Equity (ROE), Return on Assets (ROA), and Return on Capital (ROC). The author is obviously a very experienced stock analyst with a wealth of practical techniques for readers to use.

The main weakness is that Domash never really gives the reader a practical strategy for choosing stocks. He does give a generic "value" and "growth" approach, but never says which approach he uses or why. Also, there are many different kinds of value and growth investing; the strategies he lays out are so generic that they are of quite limited usefulness. Hardly anyone uses a "pure" value or growth approach.

Overall, this is one of the best books available on fundamental analysis, along with Pat Dorsey's FIVE RULES FOR SUCCESSFUL STOCK INVESTING.