Customer Reviews

The Superstock Investor: Profiting from Wall Street's Best Undervalued Companies

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The Superstock Investor is the best resource I have seen for legal and ethical instruction on how to spot companies that will be taken over or whose stocks will soon soar due to temporary, special circumstances. These methods can help you make money in up and down markets, but they require a lot of learning and focus. Even if you don't plan to use these investment methods, you will learn a lot of how Wall Street works from this fine book.

A Superstock is a "stock that has the potential to rise significantly in price regardless of what the general stock market is doing." This will be due to a "specific potential event, or 'catalyst,' usually a takeover bid . . . ." These stocks are selling well below their on-going value as a business but no one cares because they are small and either cyclical or slow-growing.

The book is filled with actual stocks that the authors have picked and followed in their newsletter. The case histories go back over 25 years of special situations, including cumulative preferred stocks suddenly making their payments after having been in arears.

The basic method involves watching factors like takeover activity in an industry, the ownership of 5+ percent institutions through 13D filings with the SEC, insider buying and selling, company share repurchases, and technical trading patterns discerned from charts.

The opening section points out the weaknesses of how most people try to pick stocks. The examples are quite humorous, and will provide entertainment value even to people who do not buy and sell stocks.

The authors are also cautious about making claims. They are trying to give you an additional set of tools, rather than replacing whatever tools you use now. The examples of how to pay attention differently to financial news are very well done.

On the other hand, do be aware that few people are going to have the interest and discipline to learn to use this investing method.

After you finish profiting from this book, I suggest that you think about where else the consensus is usually wrong. What about forecasts of what will happen next politically? . . . with fashion? . . . with the economy? . . . with entertainment celebrities?

Learn to take the conventional wisdom as wishful thinking or the latest, best guess . . . rather than as fact!

This book provides a unique insight into investing in the stock market. For most "get rich quick" investment books, only the author gets rich. This is not that kind of book. Mr. LaLoggia provides a wry and witty review of what's wrong with most investment "news" and "research" available to the public today. The book sets forth a proven system to search out and identify undervalued stocks that have been overlooked by Wall Street and the main-stream press. To Mr. LaLoggia's credit, he acknowledges that his approach is not easy and requires research and analysis by the investor. The fact that it is not easy and requires work may be the book's main virtue to the intelligent investor who realizes that there is no "get rich quick" formula.

This book was really fun to read. It sort of swings back and forth between a light-hearted view of how the stock market really works, and then gets very serious and detailed when it comes to LaLoggia's methods for picking takeover stocks. To get the most out of this book I think you have to take the market seriously and accept that picking stocks takes effort and hard work. Most of the book deals with things you should look for when reading the financial news. What I like most about the book is that it is so different from any other stock market book I've read. It's also quite humorous in parts. All in all, I highly recommend it.

There are some well thought out insights in this book, especially in regards to potential takeovers. It is clear that Ms. Mahon has thoroughly researched her subject and offers numerous real life examples of what to look for in spotting takeover opportunities, most of which is conveyed in a clear and concise manor... A fast, easy, worthwhile read.

At first glance, this book may look like just another tediously detailed behind-the-scenes guide to picking stocks. But the delightful surprise concocted by authors Charles M. LaLoggia and Cherrie Mahon is the book's page-turner narrative and laugh-out-loud wit, which they often use effectively to nail critical points. The authors focus on how to spot and invest in undervalued companies. We from getAbstract recommend this book to investment professionals (hey, the way things are going, a few fresh insights can't hurt) as well as to anyone, including Sunday speculators in need of a good laugh.