Customer Reviews

Fire Your Stock Analyst!: Analyzing Stocks On Your Own (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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!

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.

Harry Domash, entrepreneurial investor, has laid out methodologies for analyzing stocks that any investor can follow. I would recommend his book to anyone who manages his or her own investments. Everything of importance for stock analysis seems to be covered with descriptions of where to find data and how to manipulate it. Of special interest to myself were his sections on estimating stock values and on determining a business' financial fitness and profitability.

In his section on stock valuation he expresses disdain for conventional intrinsic value methods based on discounted earnings flow, claiming that stocks have no intrinsic value other than what someone will pay for them. In their place he offers two alternative methods: (1) implied earnings growth and (2) growth at a reasonable price, (GARP.) In both methods earnings growth is key. For (1) he obtains implied earnings growth from Benjamin Graham's intrinsic value formula by equating that value to current market price and solving for the (implied) growth rate. A reasonable approach but any such valuation formula could be used, including one of the maligned discounted earnings flow formulae. Domash gives no reason for his choice, but Graham's formula is simpler - a questionable criteria in the age of the computer. For (2) earnings growth is obtained from analyst's forecasts. The use of this alternative to his implied earnings growth is unexplained.

In his sections on financial fitness and profitability he compiles a collection of recipes for determining both. His `cookbook' approach seems to be the industry practice. (see B. Graham & C. McGolrick, "The Interpretation of Financial Statements") I had hoped for a more logical flow to the process, but since there may not be one Domash can't be faulted for lacking it. Maybe he could develop such a flow for his next edition.

In sum, Domash's book left me a bit perplexed, but what I found was comprehensive, informative, useful, interesting, and well worth the price.

I found "Fire Your Stock Analyst!" to be a great new book for the individual investor. The book describes in detail a practical step-by-step approach for finding, researching and evaluating growth and value stocks. The author guides the reader through the analysis process, clearly defining terms and offering sage advice based on his own experience and that of well-known insiders on Wall Street. The reader is made privy to an abundance of useful information with regard to listening in on conference calls, interpreting earnings reports, and reading financial statements. Equally important, are the discussions on how to detect scams and frauds, how to spot red flags, and how to know when it's time to sell. The Websites used to implement the analysis described in the book are readily available to anyone connected to the Internet, and are referenced throughout the book, making it easy to follow. I found this to be a very useful book for anyone willing to put in the time to learn how to do his or her own stock analysis!

Here is a book that will appeal to any and all investors, professional or novice. Harry Domash has provided us with investment tool that is easy to read and in a concise and well orgainized manner. The chapters on Screening and Analysis are worth the price of the book. I will use it over and over as a very excellent reference book. I have already found several of the websites rcommended to be most helpful in providing the information I needed to make changes in my portfolio.

If your last name is Livermore, loeb, or O'Neil don't bother buying the book, you're already a genius and you know it all. I've spent the last 31 years trading and I'm not too proud to say that I don't know it all. In my case the buying and selling was always the easy part. Finding good candidates for buying and selling was always much more difficult. In more cases than I'd like to think about, the fundamentals would look great and yet 24 hours later I'm being stopped out and could not understand why. After reading "Fire Your Stock Analyst" I understand why. If I had picked up on a few red flags that are discussed in the book, I would have never purchased the stocks in the first place. That alone is worth the price of the book to me. For those who are still hesitant about purchasing, it's a trip to McDonalds. Two Big Macs, two Happy Meals and a good case of indigestion. Buy the book and put a few more dollars in your pocket instead. Isn't that what this all about?

I've read many, many books about investing including many of the best sellers. For my money, Fire Your Stock Analyst ranks among the best. The strategies are well thought out, and Domash gives you easy to follow instructions for implementing them, mostly using free websites. If only I'd read this book two years ago.

This is a surprisingly complete guide for analyzing stocks. It seems to cover all the bases including ideas that I haven't seen before for evaluating a company's business plan and its management quality. It describes 10 or so tools for evaluating stocks in various areaa such as valuation, managment quality and financial health, and then tells you how to apply those tools to value and growth stocks. I was surprised at how differently the tools are applied in those instances.

This book is well written, simple and easy steps to analyze any stock traded. It is written in easy language and very simple steps. I use it in my investments class with my college students and I have had great feedback from my students. So much so that many of my students have moved on to banking jobs and they carry this book to their trading desks with them.