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

~ (Author), Steve Forbes (Foreword)
Key Phrases: strong buy, quantum stocks, oasis stocks, Wall Street, United States, Wells Fargo (more...)

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)

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (October 5, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047013772X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470137727
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (54 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #67,159 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 58 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 "shinano01" (Flint, MI USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

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

By	Thomas - See all my reviews

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.

39 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-Have for the Growth Investor, October 13, 2007

By	Susanna Hutcheson "Copywriting for the Discri... (Midwest U.S.A.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

There are numerous types of investing. You no doubt know that. Growth investing is a type of investing that we all should do at some point of our investment life. In fact, I for one love investing for growth and finding good companies poised to grow big time. That's why I enjoyed this book.

Actually, value investing is a form of growth investing. The real problem for the growth investor is finding companies with balance sheets that tell us, "Hey, this company will go places." And, wouldn't it be great if it would do well in any market?

That's where this book can help.

Growth investing produces (or is intended to produce) capital gains rather than income. Income gives us dividends. That comes from, most often, blue chip companies or companies that have been around quite a while.

Growth investing is the place where you can really make money. Income investing is generally done by older people who want to preserve capital and have some fairly secure income. Growth investing is for people who have the time to grow their portfolio over a longer period. It does not pay dividends.

Navellier has created a proven and easy-to-follow approach to growth investing that offers you a rare opportunity to outperform the market without excessive risk. It doesn't get much better than that.

He explains why his method works and he shows you how to find stocks that are poised for rapid price increases no matter how much volatility is in the market.

Most investors are really not that great at investing. And those who call themselves professionals seldom are the best stock pickers.

So you should arm yourself with this book. Go out and find the winners. It only takes a few to make you rich.