The Little Book That Makes You Rich: A Proven Market-Beating Formula for Growth Investing (Little Books. Big Profits) [Hardcover]

Louis Navellier (Author), Steve Forbes (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2007 | Series: Little Books. Big Profits (Book 15)

Profit from a powerful, proven investment strategy

The Little Book That Makes You Rich is the latest book in the popular "Little Book, Big Profits" series. Written by Louis Navellier -- one of the most well-respected and successful growth investors of our day -- this book offers a fundamental understanding of how to get rich using the best in growth investing strategies. Navellier has made a living by picking top, actively traded stocks and capturing unparalleled profits from them in the process. Now, with The Little Book That Makes You Rich, he shows you how to find stocks that are poised for rapid price increases, regardless of overall stock market direction. Navellier also offers the statistical and quantitative measures needed to measure risk and reward along the path to profitable growth stock investing. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Little Book That Makes You Rich gives individual investors specific tools for selecting stocks based on the factors that years of research have proven to lead to growth stock profits. These factors include analysts' moves, profit margins expansion, and rapid sales growth. In addition to offering you tips for not paying too much for growth, the author also addresses essential issues that every growth investor must be aware of, including which signs will tell you when it's time to get rid of a stock and how to monitor a portfolio in order to maintain its overall quality. Accessible and engaging, The Little Book That Makes You Rich outlines an effective approach to building true wealth in today's markets.

Louis Navellier (Reno, NV) has one of the most exceptional long-term track records of any financial newsletter editor in America. As a financial analyst and editor of investment newsletters since 1980, Navellier's recommendations (published in Emerging Growth) have gained over 4,806 percent in the last 22 years, as confirmed by a leading independent newsletter rating service, The Hulbert Financial Digest. Emerging Growth is one of Navellier's four services, which also includes his Blue Chip Growth service for large-cap stock investors, his Quantum Growth service for active traders seeking shorter-term gains, and his Global Growth service for active traders focused on high growth global stocks.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Self confessed numbers geek Navellier has developed what he claims is an effective and durable system to beat the stock market, long thought a money-loser by financiers due to its self-correcting nature. Rather than focus on one or two indicators, Navellier has weighted a basket of eight variables ("earnings revisions," "operating margins," "free cash flow," etc.), a quantitative strategy he shares in complex detail and happily accessible prose. Looking into the hows and whys of stock performance, Navellier lays open the complex economic environment and explicates his eight indicators in depth, showing how they relate to the market and the real world. Though he relates choosing stocks to everyday activities such as household budgeting and sports ("Never fall in love with your second baseman or your stocks"), his precise "by the numbers" approach is far removed from emotional interference. Still, he does take into account investors' personal preferences and predicament-risk level, stress, age, tax situation and so on. Providing numerous successful examples of his system's past performance, one can't help but wonder how long this system will continue to yield results; still, this good-natured guidebook will help anyone new to investing or interested in learning a new way to look at the market.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Navellier builds a good case for this of investing"  (Bloomberg News, Wednesday 21st November 2007)

"A useful book on growth investing. . . Perhaps the greatest appeal of Mr. Navellier’s effort. . . is not that he offers a step-by-step guide to what he looks for in a growth company . . . The real joy comes from his frequent admonitions that Wall Street is not as rational as it would like to pretend, and in fact it is often driven either by fear — as it is these days — or by greed." (The New York Times)

"Navellier builds a good case for this style of investing. It might work for you." (Bloomberg News)

"A real contribution to investment literature. . . " (MarketWatch)

"No Greek letters or complex equations are necessary for understanding and even emulating Navellier. He focuses on eight straightforward factors for sorting the wheat from the chaff and has seen his leading newsletter, Emerging Growth, outperform the overall market nearly fourfold over 22 years. His mutual and institutional stock funds have performed handsomely too, with his Touchstone Large Cap Growth in the top 3% and 13% of similar funds over one and three years, respectively, according to Morningstar." (Dow Jones newswire)

"'One of the chief things I have learned is that numbers do not have emotions. . . They don't panic; they don't get greedy. They don't have an argument with their spouse or associates and make bad decisions as a result.' True enough — and for all investors, words to live by." (Registered Rep magazine)

"Navellier did a good job with the book and offers a nice introduction to screening. . . He should be given full credit for freely opening up his system to everyone." (The Kirk Report)

"This is a very helpful guide to building a strong portfolio without spending a great amount of time on it."  (Pensions World, January 2008)

“…the book offers a fundamental understanding of how to get rich using the best in growth investing strategies.” (Gulf Business, March)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (October 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047013772X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470137727
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.1 x 7.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,362 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louis Navellier is one of Wall Street's renowned growth investors, with a track record of beating the market 4-to-1. He is the editor of four investing newsletters: Emerging Growth (formerly known as MPT Review), Blue Chip Growth, Quantum Growth and Global Growth, all of which are published by InvestorPlace Media, LLC. His longest-running publication, Emerging Growth has gained 5,387.9% in the last 22 years according to The Hulbert Financial Digest. Those returns outpace the S&P 500 by nearly 4-to-1. Navellier uses a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis to identify market-beating stocks. Most notably, Navellier has made his proven formula accessible to investors by assigning easy-to-interpret letter-grade ratings via his free online stock-rating tool, PortfolioGrader Pro.
He is author of 'The Little Book That Makes You Rich." Louis Navellier is Chairman and Founder of Navellier & Associates, Inc.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

72 of 81 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars The Little Book that might make you a little more money than some folks some of the time. November 5, 2007

By Fredrick P. Wilson

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The title of this book is very catchy, entirely appropriate if you had invested with Navellier through the `80's and `90's when the market went from less than 1,000 to almost 12,000 (and the NASDAQ even more so, of course), but, if you were with Navellier during the market tank of 2000-2003, then you would know that the title of the book is more than a little misleading.

The success of Navellier is 100% dependant upon the overall stock market. When the market is going up, then the title of this book is OK. When the market is going down, it is easy to lose money much faster than the market does. There are exceptions to every rule, but overall, these "fundamentally superior" companies with outstanding earnings just follow the stock market. Normally, when the market is going down, these stocks will lose against the market up to twice or three times as much on a percentage basis on any given day.

Normally, when the market is tanking and your account is also, you'll receive a nice E-mail telling you to sing the "Don't worry, be happy" song, for every downturn is nothing but a buying opportunity. However wonderful that may be for Forbes, who wrote the forward, and Navellier himself, since they are both richer than Pharaoh, it is not a joyful experience for the normal investor. Since the normal investor is fully invested, exactly what money do we have sitting on the sidelines? Usually we are fully invested with the limited money we have, hoping against hope, to make some money, and have no from-under-the-mattress sack of cash to pony up since we just lost our shirts during this "buying opportunity"!

Navellier recommends what he calls his "Oasis" stocks, to ameliorate your losses when the market is dropping. The only problem is that these "oasis" stocks won't save your portfolio, for they will drop like rocks also, at least in the market of 2003 - 2007.

In early March 2006, the market dropped from a high of 11,600, but by October 2006, had recovered to 11,600. All of Navelliers stocks had lost his investors tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, and were way down from March through October, not recovering until the spring of 2007. For relatively new investors, during that period we all lost everything we had made back to our principle, while the market was flat. Mr. Navellier stated that during that time period "growth" stocks had fallen out of favor. No kidding! "Out of favor?" I would hate to see how much money we all would lose if the stocks became downright unpopular.

Once, at a seminar, Mr. Navellier showed a chart that had a rapid rise and then fall. He states that he told those investors after the fall that at least his stocks had made 3% more than the market. That is a far cry from anything else stated by Mr. Navellier, for double, triple, even quadruple gains are the norms, going up, but the mirror reverse, which is never mentioned, is true when the market is going down.

There is a chart for the Quantum Growth Stocks in this book, which shows a 1,500+ point rise since 1998, including making money during the down market of 2000-2003. There are liars, darn liars, and statistical number crunchers. I would have to see the raw data that was "back tested" before I could believe this chart. Certainly, these stocks utilize stop orders, so there is a somewhat limited downside, but normally the stops that have not been exceeded are just lowered, and until these stocks hit their stop order limits, they can lose your shirt for you also.

The unfortunate occurrence in today's market is that it wanders up and down, up and down, up and down. If that is repetitive, so is the market. Every time his investors make a little bit of money, the market drops and we lose it all over again. And again. And again.

The Little Book That Makes You Rich is titled with a marginally verifiable statement, for both Forbes in the forward and Navellier know the reality of these "fundamentally superior" stocks, and sugar-coat it out of existence in this book.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good for Beginners, October 20, 2007

By Thomas

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This small and easy to read book provides a good introduction to the fundamentals of growth investing. However, the experienced investor will find little inspiration in reading that stock valuation is based on earnings and sales growth as well as other Finance 101 parameters such as betas and alphas. The book doesn't go into much detail on how the 8 parameters for growth investing fit together so you can calculate your own valuation score and tweak it for your own needs.

To find a stock's valuation score, you'll have to go to the book's companion Web Site where you'll find a carefully crafted set of pages that feel like they were designed by a marketing consultant. The stock database is interesting but of limited value to an investor. The registration process is done in two steps: first you sign up and get a generic account that doesn't let you save a portfolio, then two days later you get an email that allows you to create your own username which can then be used to save a list of stock picks. Why is this necessary? This feels like it's part of a marketing campaign that aims at increasing your hunger for more. Once you get to the database, you'll notice that many A rated stocks are overvalued and at the peak of their hype cycle. Blindly building a portfolio of A rated stocks seems like a good way to loose your money.

In the end the book leaves you with a hunger for more. How do ratings evolve over time? How do you weight the 8 fundamental indicators? What is the "Quantitave Grade" that mysteriously appears in the stock database but never gets explained in the book or on the site? It's hard to believe that all of these open ended questions are not part of a more elaborate strategy: Give the reader a taste of Navellier investing and then let them eat the full meal by buying into his funds.

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent guide to stock picking October 4, 2007

By T. Melvin

Format:Hardcover

Quite simply, this is one of the best books on picking stocks I have ever read. Most of the books I read in this area are not specific enough about the exact steps need to find high quality stocks. In straight forward easy to read and understand language, navellier revelas exactly what qualities he looks for in growth stocks. most of the tools you need to be a winning investor in growth stocks are in this book. What few tools he couldnt give away in the book he makes available to you on the books companion web site. I think investors both new and experienced can learn a lot about finding winners from this book. Navellier teaches the techniques, the mindset and how to mangage your portfolio over time. It is a gem of a littlebook!