
Lessons from the Legends of Wall Street : How Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Phil Fisher, T. Rowe Price, and John Templeton Can Help You Grow Rich
Posted by jack_miller | Published 10 months ago

With 15 ratings
By: Nikki Ross CFP
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Each chapter provides vital strategies for creating a sound investment plan.
*WARREN BUFFETT: the super-combination investor shares insights about how to profit from annual reports and what to look for in stock research reports. *PHIL FISHER: the investigative growth investor tells how to pick stocks with tremendous profit potential by evaluating management, products, and policies of companies. *BENJAMIN GRAHAM: the value numbers investor provides important financial numbers and ratios to evaluate companies. Grahams followers give expanded criteria for 21st century value investing. *T. ROWE PRICE: the visionary growth investor discusses how to evaluate the life stage of a company, warning signals of slowing growth, and trends affecting stocks, updated by disciples. *JOHN MARKS TEMPLETON: the spiritual global investor, and one of the first money managers to invest internationally, gives 16 timeless investment rules and strategies for global investing in todays volatile markets.
If you already know who Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, Phil Fisher, T. Rowe Price, and John Templeton are and what their investment styles are or were, you don't need this book. If these people or the details of their work are unfamiliar to you, this book will serve as a good introduction to those perspectives. It will also take you less time to study than reading the more definitive works on these people. If any of the approaches excite you, I suggest you go in for more depth elsewhere.
What is unique and valuable about this book is an attempt to blend the styles into one you can use to pick stocks and bonds. I thought that it was done reasonably well. Each investor is laid out in the same format, and then the results are summarized in the last part of the book. Basically, you are shown how to gather and evaluate the most appropriate information, and then to make a decision based on your evaluation.
There is also some good material to help you understand your risk profile, so you can focus on the relevant types of investments for you. There are also some questions to fill out like those that financial planners often use (that should be no surprise, given that the author is a certified financial planner).
My only concern is that this book could encourage you to try to do too much of your own investment picking and monitoring. Most people don't want to be that involved. And most people don't have the time or interest to do the job well, even if they want to. Although it is exciting to think about getting great investment returns, the odds are actually against you. If great results interest you, even after those caveats, I suggest you read ChangeWave Investing and think about putting 10 percent or less of your money into that approach. It could be the outstanding result that will become equally respected with the past greats in the future.
In any case, enjoy using this well done book to overcome your misconception, disbelief and procrastination stalls about personal investing. Your brief apprenticeship with the masters outlined in this book will give you a better understanding of what successful investment processes have looked like. Then see if they fit you.
Live long and prosper!
The book is divided into 6 parts on one each of these legends and another on how to combine the knowledge of these experts. The sections are organized in an interesting way first off you learn what some of the stocks the well known investor has bought and why they met their purchasing criteria. There is also a nice 3 steps to how you can use their methods in your investments, this in turn is organized by:
1. Gathering information (this part it almost worthless in my opinion since it is very similar for each of the investors)
2. Evaluate (this is the best part of each of the areas in the book, you learn the questions these masters would ask a company and themselves. It's very good.)
3. Making decisions discusses how the masters decide when to buy and sell the stock.
This book and "The Money Masters" by John Train are interesting reads if you enjoy learning about the careers and wisdom these masters are willing to share.
I believe this book wouldn't be very useful for strict CAN SLIM investors or day traders but good for the buy and hold or long term growth and value investors it definitely shows you some of the possibilities.
Reed Floren