This is a great book. For me, personally, scuttlebutt revolutionized my way of investing. Small-cap companies are not followed as closely as the big blue chip companies, and I found it essential to use the scuttlebutt approach to assess the strengths and weaknesses of individual companies. It is amazing what one can find out by talking with industry experts, competitors, salesmen, managers, and many other industry participants. This book teaches readers how to evaluate companies on a qualitative basis versus quantitative.

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

This book served me well from the early 1960s until now. It stood out from the other financial books then and does today. Lawrence Wegeman, Jr.

You love to communicate and hate balance sheets: then this book is for you. The Theme of "Common Stocks" is: How to pick low risk, high potential growth stocks by thoroughly talking to people (scuttlebutt)? Typical conversational partners are customers, employees, suppliers, top management. He gives clear advice of the matters to be addressed. Actually doing it is work, a lot of work.

General advice is given also. Like the dangers of so called safe investments.

You get three different books written at different times:
(1) "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits" (145 pages)
(2) "Conservative Investors Sleep Well" (50 pages)
(3) "Developing an Investment Philosophy" (57 pages)
Also the introduction of his son Kenneth Fisher is of considerable size (23+27 pages).

If you are interested in biographies or in financial history you also find a lot of interest.

In total a very useful and entertaining book and a totally different and complementary approach to value investing then the great Security Analysis: The Classic 1934 Edition.

To the reviewers giving this book one star, I ask you to consider other investment books on the market. Most are full of hype, bad advice, and soon to be outdated methodologies. This book, along with The Intelligent Investor can stand the test of time.

Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits takes effort to read. I took notes on each chapter as I read it as a way to keep myself focused on what Fisher is trying to say. I don't think this makes him a poor writer. Rather, some of the concepts are deep enough that they take a careful reading and then a going over for the gems within.

In this book Fisher outlines a general philosophy for investing. He does not provide you with the tools necessary to implement the philosophy. You will need to do that work on your own by learning to read financial statements, investigate management, and learn about a company's business and industry. What he does provide you is a framework that will help you avoid making as many costly mistakes in your learning process or even never realizing that there are fundamentally sound and unsound methods of investing.

To the reviewer stating that Fisher advocates growth stocks at any cost, this assertion is simply untrue. Fisher clearly says that growth stocks (stock in a company with excellent future prospects) at value prices are the gems to look for. Growth stocks at fair prices are a second best choice and growth stocks at high prices may be acceptable under certain conditions. Poorly run companies should almost never be purchased, because even though they may be "cheap", information is more likely to come to light that will make that "cheap" price very costly.

Highly recommended. Undestand the basics on it to develop a succesful approach in investments. Follow the principles shown here by many succesful worldwide investors.

Common stocks and uncommon profits explained in a very common sense. I am sure back in the 50's the "15 points" explained in this book was a great deal but now in 2000's it has very little value although the points are still perfectly valid. My biggest problem with this book was ,however, that it was too boring to read. The sentences were too long (3-4 lines) all connected with "by which", "in which" etc. I couldn't read more then 3 pages at a time. I often said "come on cut to the chase!" while reading. Anyway after my second attempt to finish the book at around 2/3 the way to the end, I gave up and put it in the shelf.

This book makes me want to finish up any other project I'm currently working on so I can spend my free time finding good investments. Excellent book, not to mention it's recommended by Warren Buffett.

I was disappointed, however, that there wasn't an Unabridged Audio CD version. And the reader of the abridged audio CD is rather boring, but overall I'm very glad I found this book.

This is an outstanding outline of the philosophy for long-term investing. The text is somewhat abstract and difficult to read at times, but it is very insightful and well worth the effort.

I had read other reviews of this book that gave it high marks. I have no idea why. The book is nothing but generalities or suggestions the average investor can not use. For example, his point 10 in evaluating a company is: How good are the company's cost analysis and accounting controls? Then he goes on to say that the average investor has no idea. Brilliant! If you want to read a good book, get "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjemin Graham instead. Leave this one on the shelf.