Money and Finance
From Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits:
- Phil Fisher Quote
From Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits: Not even the most outstanding growth companies need necessarily be expected to show sales for every single year larger than those of the year before. In another chapter I will attempt to show why the normal intricacies...
- Improving Returns With Industry Consolidation...
From the book Capital Account: One of the primary cures for poor returns is consolidation, which is either driven by mergers and acquisition activity or by firms leaving the industry. By increasing the average size of firms within an industry, consolidation...
- Philip Fisher's 15 Points To Look For In A Common Stock
After reading Peter Lynch's Beating the Street a few weeks ago, I decided to read another investing classic: Philip Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. As one of the pioneers of the modern investing industry, Fisher is often credited...
- Centurylink's Dividend Cut Provides Many Valuable Lessons
A brief post this evening, but I wanted to quickly comment on today's big dividend news -- U.S. telecom & broadband company CenturyLink making a "surprise" dividend cut of 26%. The stock fell sharply on the news, making it clear that...
- Earning Money Is Never Easy, I've Truly Understood That Now; Comex 2014
Day 2 of Comex 2014. It has been quite some time since I ended my Internship, experiencing the life of a full time working employee. As such, I was completely unprepared for Comex to be honest. The commission of selling $100+ items works about to...
Money and Finance
The importance of an above-average sales organization...
From Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits:
In this competitive age, the products or services of few companies are so outstanding that they will sell to their maximum potentialities if they are not expertly merchandised. It is the making of a sale that is the most basic single activity of any business. Without sales, survival is impossible. It is the making of repeat sales to satisfied customers that is the first benchmark of success. Yet, strange as it seems, the relative efficiency of a company's sales, advertising, and distributive organizations receives far less attention from most investors, even the careful ones, than do production, research, finance, or other major subdivisions of corporate activity.
There is probably a reason for this. It is relatively easy to construct simple mathematical ratios that will provide some sort of guide to the attractiveness of a company's production costs, research activity, or financial structure in comparison with its competitors. It is a great deal harder to make ratios that have even a semblance of meaning in regard to sales and distribution efficiency.
... Again, the way out of this dilemma lies in the use of the “scuttlebutt” technique. Of all the phases of a company's activity, none is easier to learn about from sources outside the company than the relative efficiency of a sales organization. Both competitors and customers know the answers. Equally important, they are seldom hesitant to express their views. The time spent by the careful investor in inquiring into this subject is usually richly rewarded.
- Phil Fisher Quote
From Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits: Not even the most outstanding growth companies need necessarily be expected to show sales for every single year larger than those of the year before. In another chapter I will attempt to show why the normal intricacies...
- Improving Returns With Industry Consolidation...
From the book Capital Account: One of the primary cures for poor returns is consolidation, which is either driven by mergers and acquisition activity or by firms leaving the industry. By increasing the average size of firms within an industry, consolidation...
- Philip Fisher's 15 Points To Look For In A Common Stock
After reading Peter Lynch's Beating the Street a few weeks ago, I decided to read another investing classic: Philip Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. As one of the pioneers of the modern investing industry, Fisher is often credited...
- Centurylink's Dividend Cut Provides Many Valuable Lessons
A brief post this evening, but I wanted to quickly comment on today's big dividend news -- U.S. telecom & broadband company CenturyLink making a "surprise" dividend cut of 26%. The stock fell sharply on the news, making it clear that...
- Earning Money Is Never Easy, I've Truly Understood That Now; Comex 2014
Day 2 of Comex 2014. It has been quite some time since I ended my Internship, experiencing the life of a full time working employee. As such, I was completely unprepared for Comex to be honest. The commission of selling $100+ items works about to...