I read this at the urging of a friend. As background, I'm a retired professional investment advisor, have been through the Chartered Financial Analyst curriculum, and have decades of investing experience. I am therefore instantly suspicious of a book that promises on its back cover that "Anyone can learn to invest wisely with this bestselling investment system!"

Granted, O'Neil clearly spends all his time with his charts, and otherwise must not get out yet. He comments that NASDAQ an OTC trading venue, not an exchange, when in fact NASDAQ gained exchange status in 2006. He thinks that air traffic accidents are investigated by the Civil Aeronautics Board, which lost its safety responsibilities to the FAA in 1978. Most tellingly, he writes, "Unfortunately, no original or thorough research on price pattern analysis has been done in the last 78 years." Even a brief perusal of the academic journals on investing and finance would have shown him that this isn't true.

Much of the book focuses on chart reading. O'Neil includes many historical charts that clearly show his patterns. Unfortunately, many of the patterns are only clear in retrospect. For example, he describes a double-bottom pattern, shaped like a "W," where you should buy in as the right side moves up past the middle point of the W. Then he describes a double-bottom with handle, where the right side of the W is followed by a modest decline, and then you want to wait to buy until it reaches the top of the right side of the W. However, he describes no way to tell in advance whether the pattern will have a handle. By the time you know that there's a handle, you'll have already purchased on the right side of the W.

As another example, he shows patterns for detecting market bottoms. However, you can look to the left of where he marks the bottom, and often see a false bottom that meets exactly the same criteria. I suspect that O'Neil, given his experience, has other ways to gauge the validity of these stock patterns. Unfortunately, if he can't describe them, it greatly reduces the value of the book.

That probably explains why he adds the caveat that it takes years for someone to start reliably making money using his "system." Some people, with experience, will develop the same ability to figure out when the chart patterns are correct. However, it's very misleading to describe the book's contents as a "system," which in the investing world means a set of rules that can be strictly followed. Instead, it's a set of guidelines and philosophies on which you will have to add your own hard-earned experience to create a system.

Which brings me back to the overinflated claim that, "Anyone can learn to invest wisely with this bestselling investment system!" It's absolutely false. So much is left to discretion that it will require someone with particular aptitudes to be successful at it. If you enjoy doing extensive analysis, have an innate skill at identifying visual patterns, and have the patience to study and learn chart reading, then you will probably be successful with O'Neil's approach. Someone who doesn't meet those criteria will almost certainly fail.

Good introduction to equity investing for retail investors. O'Neil's methods do not work for professional fund managers.

Some good thoughts mixed with some b.s. and a lot of self advertising for his business. The pro america agenda was unnecessary as was the views on politics and Iran.

I was really looking for a book on trading stocks (versus investing) and I believe that this book offers lessons applicable to both.

When I first began trading stocks online, I made the exact mistakes that this book says not to do. When a stock jumped in price, I sold and took profits too early when I should have held on and purchased more. When a stock fell in price, I either bought more stock to bring my average cost down or held on to my losing stocks too long "knowing" that eventually they would have to come back up. I was wrong. These are the classic mistakes that according to the book, most traders make, which is why they end up losing their money. And this was the exact same thing that happened to me.

If I had read this book before getting into the market, I may have been able to prevent the big losses and keep the small gains I had been able to make. I would definetly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning how to trade or invest in the stock market. I haven't tried out the "CAN SLIM" system taught in this book, so I can't tell you if it works or not or that I made money following it, but I can tell you that the system makes sense and is worth learning even if you choose not to follow it.

Absolutely this book is a classic!

In his book, Bill O'neil calls his breakout trading system "CANSLIM". Each letter in the word C-A-N-S-L-I-M stands for one of the seven chief characteristics of great winning Growth Stocks at their early developing stages, just before they make huge profits for their shareholders. The explanation of each letter is as follows:

* C = Current Quarterly Earnings Per Share
* A = Annual Earnings Increases
* N = New Products, New Management, New Highs
* S = Supply and Demand: Small Capitalization plus Volume Demand
* L = Leader or Laggard
* I = Institutional Sponsorship
* M = Market Direction: What is the overall Stock Market doing?

This system works, and this book teaches you both fundamental and technical analysis.

This is a classical book on the concept of investing. But you need to read it along with one fundamental book, such as something about Warren Buffett, and the classic trading books by Linda Raschke and Toby Crabel who are full-time hedge fund managers. If you only read this book alone, you may find its concepts do not stand the test of times. But in combination with Crabel or Raschke, you have a much better chance of putting on a smart trader or investment. Happy reading.

This book is an excellent introduction to technical analysis and breakout/trend-trading. If you are thinking about buying this book you probably are just getting started with technical analysis and breakout/trend-trading, in which case you should buy this book and read it a couple of times. It's a very strong and effective starter.

O'Neils conceptual framework for understanding why the market behaves the way it does is enlightening and accurate. His core concepts alone are totally worth your time and money. I would also highly recommend Stan Weinstein's 1988 classic "Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets." O'Neils book on shorting stocks is also excellent. I like John Murphy for technical analysis and you'll need to get a primer on reading financial statements too.

Sometimes O'Neil is criticized for always promoting his newspaper (IBD) which is expensive, and people sometimes say that you cannot use his methods without a subscription to his paper. This is totally false. I trade stock breakouts in a fashion that is close to what I learned from O'Neils books and I do not subscribe to IBD. I use free stock charts from both [...] and my brokerage. Corporate financial statements are free. So is the news. Relative strength can be measured in various ways and does not require an IBD subscription. Technical analysis and an understanding of the markets do not require IBD, though IBD contains a lot of great information. If you have the money subscribe. I don't.

I read multiple books on each aspect of trading (tactics, psychology, technical analysis, fundamental analysis, macroeconomics, economic history) and don't be silly! You'll have to do the same. I estimate that a person needs to read about 50 books to really get their primary education about trading. That was about right for me. There is no easy path. But think about it. 1 book/week = 52/year. You're only one year out...

How to Make Money in Stocks: A Winning System in Good Times and Bad, Fourth Edition

This book has some interesting advice, but most of it is focused on selling services from Investors Business Daily (IDB), [...]. Also a lot of it is trying to interpret charts, trying to show that every stock shows buying or selling signals based on the price and volume movement, which I doubt. For example, it shows that companies like AIG, Citi, Enron and Worldcom showed selling signals at or almost at their peaks, when buying interest was "exhausted", but I couldnt see why. It would be interesting to see what an experienced trader would say about this book. There were some common-sense ideas and good stories, but overall, not recommended unless you're well-seasoned investor and familiar with all the terms it's using, like the chartology terms.

This is a very dull reading material. The concepts being promoted is conceptually simple, but hard to understand in real situation and can get very complicated. It's like trying to learn to read tea leafs.

If your looking to finally determine how to choose your portfolio this book is IT! I have read all Mr ONeil's books but this one summarizes all of them.

The most important aspect of this book is that I've made a lot of money with this approach. It's allowed me to stop guessing at stocks and understand what they're doing and why. And it works.

I have just received the book last week. I have read quickly and roughly thro' some chapters of the book. My first impression is that the rules are highly probably good for making optimal profits from stocks. But it is easier said than done. I need to read this book again and again in order to fully understand the concepts. The graphs are difficuly to interpret. The author seems never use candlestick, RSI, stochastics, flags or triangles . Well, all those technical analysis tools are not scientific (it is not Law of Physics) and could be fooled and tricked by those large hedge funds. O'Neil is more practical. From his book he doesn't even use those "open, high, low, close" bar charts. He only uses "high, low, close" chart. Very simple ! The first chapter in this book is very practical . Most of the graphs have stock price at the right and EPS at the left axis !!! This is very usefull and I can see how the stocks' prices go with the EPS in a given period of time frame. I have never seen graphs like this !!! It would be even better if the graphs are magnified many times and become more detailed. But then I probably need to subscribe to Investor's Business Daily in order to see the details. I would like to see some more details in the graphs , such as some breaking news in some certain dates in the graphs. But then the graphs in the book are too small and not much space left.

Unfortunately I don't live in USA and I don't have any experience on those US stocks. Of course I know those great brand names such as Google, Yahoo, IBM, Cisco (you name it) etc. but I don't know how to make fat profits from these great stocks (only in their best time frames of high speed growth) . I only trade stocks in Hong Kong and most of them are stocks of mainland China enterprises. Now I consider trading US stocks. I think about subscribing IBD .

Unfortunately in Hong Kong I don't know how to get the RS (relative strengh) rating for those Hong Kong stocks and we don't have something similar to IBD.

But then it seems at this moment there is not yet any great monster stocks in USA. I am not sure. The fundamentals change a lot after the Lehman Brother crises in 2008. The people in USA now have a higher saving rate. And the unemployment is high. I have to choose stocks very carefully.

I like this book much much more than those pure technical analysis books. Those pure TA books are not too useful for me. For example, some TA books have statistics of certain pattern's successful rate etc. Some TA or stock chart books also discuss the "Cup and Handle" pattern and talks about percentage successfull rate. It has absolutely no mention of the fundamentals of those stocks with the "Cup and Handle" pattern. So these books are too obsessed with the meaningless statistics. They are useless !!!

And O'Neil's book is far better than those whole bunch of Warren Buffett's books. I am tired of those Warren Buffet's books that keep talking about the good old days of some historical stocks such as Coca Cola, Geico, etc. Well this is old history. Don't dwell in those antique stocks. Let's move on to some new stocks.

O'Neil's book is different. He even teaches you how to make fat profits of those final stage high speed run with unbelievably high PE.

Along with O'Neil's excellent THE SUCCESSFUL INVESTOR, this book is one of the best introductions to growth stock investing available. He proposes a method (CANSLIM) to discouver what are the best candidates for investment and measure overall market health. BOTH are required for his method to work. The fact that it encourages the use of Investor's Business Daily (IBD) is not a drawback to my mind because market and industry trends change so frequently that you need a daily source of information to keep up with possible CANSLIM candidates. That being said, readers should realize that this method requires that you familiarize yourself with charts and that you be willing to take responsibility for your choices. Not everyone is willing to spend 30-60 minutes a day reading IBD. Many too, prefer to rely on brokers or a guru to make choices because it gives them somebody to blame when there are losses. IBD is useless for such investors.

A few caveats: O'Neil encourages you to search for "leaders" with excellent fundamentals that are breaking out of sound bases. Then you must buy in within 5% of their breakout "pivot points" IF their volume is well above average on that day. To help you find these leaders, IBD lists 100 stocks every weekend that satisfy CANSLIM criteria. Unfortunately, 10-15% of the IBD 100 are replaced every week. So that in hindsight it is easy to point out how this or that stock did well "because" it was a leader, but there are many many more examples of CANSLIM candidates with excellent bases and fundamentals that suddenly drop large percentages after proper breakouts simply because market psychology has shifted. It follows in hindsight that they were never true leaders. Meanwhile, there are plenty of companies with excellent charts, but questionable fundamentals, that do as well or better than his CANSLIM leaders. This can be very frustrating.

Finally, for Canadian investors looking for CANSLIM candidates in the TSE, it is well to remember that our heavy reliance on resource stocks means that their fundamentals are often terrible just before they perform best. Resource stocks rise most dramatically when the market perceives that the commodities underlying these stocks are poised to rise in value after a period in the dumps. CANSLIM is therefore a poor guide in this area.

To sum up then, CANSLIM works best with young companies offering new products, often in tech industries. That way, their sales, earnings and margins show the steady rise that gives them a high fundamental score in the CANSLIM universe. At the end of the day, however, the market is a maelstrom of fear and hope where fleeting perceptions of future potential far outweigh past fundamentals. CANSLIM can help you narrow your list of choices, but it can also give you a false sense of security until the day where your "leader" suddenly loses favor. To his credit, O'Neil often concedes this, but then forgets it just as fast when explaining the charts of past winners. Leadership is a tricky business.

Not only have I saved much of my retirement savings applying the principles of this book, but added money also. I like the way Mr. O'Neil in plain language displays and explains past market results through the years, plus his proven techniques in the Stock Market. Many others out in the market still don't admit their mistakes and worse yet, don't learn from them!! This book is a must if you want to succeed in making money in stocks.
mbcjr

The book has an adequate explanation of strategy for success with stocks. The hard part in Kindle format is viewing the graphs that are touted as the basis for the strategy. Even in landscape mode the text is small on these figures. Worse is the grey color which is ill defined and difficult to see. Even with reading glasses on my 47 year old eyes I found it laborous to use the visual aids. This is the kind of book that I would imagine flipping back and forth between text and graphs. In trying to do this the Kindle would hang up for more than just seconds and occasionally require a reboot. I recommend the book but not in Kindle format.

Great analyitical and historical perspective on the stock market. A well written and sensible strategy for investing.

I have been a long-time reader of investors business daily, and this book summarizes everything that a wise investor needs to know. They're special emphasis on avoiding emotional stock buys and learning to get out of a bad stock. Anybody who invest in the market and doesn't read this at least 2 or 3 times is making a big mistake.

I am a value investor and found this book helpful in certain places. For example, when evaluating the supply and demand of a particular stock, it is helpful to watch its daily trading volume to determine whether institutional buyers are acquiring the stock. However, I am not a big believer in technical analysis, but this does not mean that it does not work.

- 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

Investing's simple but that doesn't mean its easy. This book shows that to be oh so true. In the last two months I have read somewhere around forty books on stock market investing and trading, and this is by far in the top five of books. CAN SLIM is a brilliant investing strategy, that if utilizied correctly can make you a fortune in the market. I started off with a thousand dollars in March--though I had much experience while working in High School with a man who was trading stocks for a living--I lost five hundred dollars, and then, through using this strategy, I've turned it into three thousand dollars. More now, SWM set off many indicators that I learned to look for in this book, and three others, and have made nearly another thousand dollars. I have missed and made a mistake on at least twelve or so stocks, but with an eight percent stop loss, my losses were minimal, and far outweighed by the seven winners I had.

This book has simple rules:
Buy with a continuing earning growth
A growth in price and volume
Look for chart formations
New Product
Follow the Leader
Institutional Sponsorship
and the overall market direction

Never buy long in a bear market, never sell short in a bull market--these are rules to live by. A cliche that is rarely heard on Wall-Street.

The other important books every investor should read that has been the biggest help to me are
How I made $2,000,000 Dollars in The Stock Market by Nicolas Darvas (a big influence on William O'Neil)
Wall Street The New Las Vegas by Nicolas Darvas (which explains Darvas style and certain indicators that are very important)
Stan Weinstein's Secrets for Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets by Stan Weinstein
How to Trade Stocks by Jessee Livermore (his pyramid method is an inspiration for adding on to winning positions)
Trend Following by Michael Covel
Battle for Investment Survival by Gerald Loeb (a very important influence on William O'Neil)

You can't go wrong with this book.

For anyone interested in doing their own investing in stocks, this is THE book to read to manage your own stock portfolio. It is a rules based system studied over 100 years and if followed can make you $ in good or bad stock markets. It leaves out emotions from the buy and sale of stocks. Highly recommended read!

If you are wondering if you should get the latest version of this book, the 100 annotated charts in this edition are well worth more than the price of the book.

Excellent book,a bargain, the charts of the greatest winners in first part of book is great-unfortunately for me IBD ran a "special" course a few months before the book was released with less material than what is in these charts of the greatest winners and charged each attendee 5K each-i don't know if anyone else is as pissed off as i am-it was a blatant rip off to offer the course knowing the same material, in more detail, was going to be published a few months later for under 20 dollars. So get the book but buyer beware when it comes to high priced courses. All you need is this edition of the book.

This is a book with very good review and written by a very famous person. However, unless you do have subscription of IBD, 90% of the book is useless. It does not teach you how to use all kinds of freely available data from internet (like from yahoo or google) but it is very limited to the data and analysis results provided by IBD. It doesn't even tell you how IBD obtains those results (I guess that the main reason IBD can still make money). However, living in 21st century with almost all information available for free, you cannot get much from the book.

I bought the book for 3 reasons: 1) it had a high Amazon rating 2) a Schwab broker said it was a great book he had reread 30 times 3) It was 4th edition which implied it sold well, was revised and up to date. One sentence in the book made me STOP reading it and set it aside as a lost cause. That sentence was at bottom of page 117 and said, "If you work, and cannot watch the market constantly, small quote devices or quotes available on cell phones and web sites will help you stay on top of potential breakout points." I do not want to spend every waking moment watching the market go up and down looking for potential breakout points. Due to his work, a Schwab broker can, and is, watching the market all the time. Potential readers should know that up front before they buy the book. Live and learn. Take care.

The author points to the fundamentals of studying
stocks. i.e. ratio analyses, past performance etc.
He puts into place a CANSLIM system in order to
facilitate the rankings process.

There is a clear emphasis on past performance
over a period of many years. For instance,
these stocks have performed well as past leaders:

o Xerox
o Syntex
o Dome Petroleum
o Tennessee Coal and Iron
o Cisco Systems

I owned Cisco Systems at one point and made a good profit
on the sale of the stock. Overall, this book will help
you decide which stocks belong in the portfolio for the
long term. As such, the acquisition would be worth the
price of admission.

William O'Neil's book gives investors the tools to make stock buying in an uncertain market possible. A must read for every investor, especially those who would like to regain their losses.

A guy from my IBD group said the 100 pages of full page charts are what is taught in the expensive IBD courses. Get only the 4th edition- the other editions are missing the 100 full page charts.
I highly recommend Investor's Business Daily IBD and William O'Neil's book How to Make Money In Stocks because he recommends limiting your losses to 8% from a proper breakout. My IRA is still at 100% of what it was before the 2008 crash because of the Investor's Business Daily or IBD method. Also find a local Investor's Business Daily group at [...] to find people who can help you with it. Some groups are better than others. And take IBD seminars to learn more.
I will also add a secret. I find that it is much easier to find the winners in either the Daily Graphs books or the Daily Graphs online version by getting the TOP 100 RS and TOP 100 EPS list of stocks. Always look at those stocks because I have noticed for years now that the best stocks are in those TOP 100 lists the week the market has a Follow Through Day. Yes every time there is a Follow Through Day in the market, the best movers are in that week's or the prior week's TOP RS or EPS 100 stocks. In the newspaper it is much harder to keep track of the stocks- at least for me. I mostly use the newspaper for the Investor's Corner charts now.

I started as gambler 10 years ago then realized what is wrong after huge loss. Did MBA in 3rd-tier schoool. felt i can beat the market with value investing, no luck other than losing money. then in 2007 a person introduced me IBD. i got confused as the concepts contradicted my principles. took almost a year for me to understand what WON says. may be i read the 20 times to understand the concepts. man, he is the best and my only investing book i read like a bible every day. i have read all his books, jessie livermore..and all WON's favorite books. first you need to believe in what he says. ok, did i make money after learning. yes and no loss so far. stayed in cash all along 2008 and until 3/15/09. when i read his latest edition,the first 100 pages are awesome. human pschology remains same in 100 year or 1000 years. he is my only investment guru. we are all average investor better to stick with what he says...more to come.

I have been a subscriber to IDB for a little over a year and slowly educated myself on the CAN SLIM methodology and Mr. O'Neil's charting techniques. It worked so well that I was primed to get my hands on the new edition of his book. When it hit my desk I devoured it. Indeed, it is already frayed on the edges as I continually reference the book as it has a permanant spot on my desk. This experience has turned what was once a chore, personal investing, into something I look forward to diving into everyday.

William O'Neil the author has just published his magnum opus and its a wonderful book to show the small investor how to attain wealth in an effective and systematic fashion.

This book is a guide to understand how the Stock Market really works. William O'Neal perfected his CANSLIM method in the 1960's to make himself a multi-millionaire. He felt that his investment system was something most people could learn so he launched a newspaper in 1984 called Investment Business Daily (IBD) to teach small investors how to invest well and increase their net worth significantly.

During the go-go Bull market years of the 1990's IBD reached a subscription level of over 300,000 subscribers and competed head-on the the venerable and established Wall Street Journal (WSJ). I am convinced IBD is the superior newspaper because it specifically teaches the small investor how to outperform Mutual Funds by using the small investor's main advantage - the ability to get in and out of the market quickly. This advantage when used properly allows the small investor to avoid the major damage of a huge Bear market downturn such as in the case of 2001-2002 and also in 2008. Mutual Funds being so heavily invested with billions of dollars of stocks are not so nimble; consequently they usually take heavy losses during large market downturns such as in 2008.

His system is called CANSLIM. It is a complex set of rules; so allow yourself two years to learn the basics. You will have to master the reading of technical charts and understand fundamentals of various companies. You need to understand concepts such as Sales, Earnings, Return on Equity (ROE) , how Mutual Funds operate, accumulations, distributions, relative price strength (RPS), cups and handles, breakouts, 50-day moving averages, base failures, puts, calls, pivot points, double bottoms etc. Understanding these concepts is not for the faint hearted; there is a lot to learn.

O'Neil will show you the way with his book. Unfortunately the rules are very, very counter-intuitive and contrary to so called "conventional investment wisdom" and most investment pundits. It will probably go against everything you have been taught in life. That is why most people will not apply CANSLIM methods because there is much to learn in order to win against the Stock Market. But it can be done ! To do so you need to be a hard worker and be able to learn from your mistakes. Learning CANSLIM is similar to learning upper level math courses such as statistics there are no royal roads or shortcuts in learning and applying O'Neil's CANSLIM approach.

The best analogy about what it is like in investing in the stock market effectively is that it is similar to fighting and winning a war. It's you against the Stock Market. Can you beat it or will it wreck your savings ? If you have a good stock market intelligence system you will greatly increase your odds of success. If you don't know what you are doing you will most likely end up a lot poorer. Having a excellent memory, staying objective and learning from your mistakes are key attributes to learning CANSLIM.

Similar to a previous reviewer's recommendation listed above for this book you should subscribe to IBD and read it everyday. You should have access to the Enhanced Daily Graphs to see both the Fundamental and Technical Analysis displayed on one page. You will need these tools to win this financial war; these tools provide the key financial intelligence to let you know what is really occurring in the world of the stock market.

I also recommend you keeping notes in a journal of some type. This will help you to learn the skills needed. You must also develop a skill in reading the charts to understand the psychology of what is happening in the market place. There are about 100 charts of past winners to study which provide the guide for picking future stock winners if you are able to recognize the patterns. If you can read the past history well you can predict the future. It will appear like you are looking at Latin and Greek symbols at first and will seem unintelligible for awhile but after much practice you will readily start seeing patterns. These patterns provide the entry and exits points for effective stock buys.

Why is learning this method so hard ? Here are some the key CANSLIM rules that must be mastered if you do not want to financially hurt by the Stock Market:

1) Buy stocks above $ 20 per share at the optimum pivot point in a buying surge during a strong Bull Market and sell at a higher price.
2) Always cut your losses at 7 - 8 % when buying.(Most important rule).
3) If initially successful; pyramid your buying up.
4) Stay in cash during a Bear Market.
5) Never argue with the Stock Market; it is always right.
6) Concentrate your stock buying and watch your stocks closely.
7) Do not over diversify.
8) Read the investment classics by Jesse Livermore, Gerald Loeb, Benard Baruch and Nicolas Darvas. They are the pioneers in this field and the teachers that William O'Neal discovered after reviewing 2000 investment books in the 1960's. Only few authors were worthwhile. William O'Neal refined their methods and crafted their wisdom into a complete system.
9) Keep your ego in check. Stay objective. Don't celebrate too much when you win and don't get too down on yourself when you get losses.
10) Keep your gains big & Keep your losses small.
11) Buy high and sell higher (very counter-intuitive !)

I have also subscribed to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for twenty (20) years. But the WSJ does not provide the information that is in IBD. IBD is unique and is an investment education conduit for people who are active learners and who wish to increase their net worth significantly. The WSJ has some good in-depth articles on business news but doesn't inform the small investor on when to be in the market or out of the market. This is a very major shortcoming for the WSJ which IBD fills. IBD is by far the more valuable newspaper for the small investor !

Effective use of the IBD tools is like a financially laser that will allow you to make significant gains especially in the first year of a strong Bull Market once you can apply the IBD rules.

These methods are for those who do not mind hard work. You must be able to learn from your mistakes and be tenacious in learning the complexities of the Stock Market. If you are looking for an easy way to make significant money or to increase your savings you need to look elsewhere. You will not be happy trying to learn very complex and counter-intuitive concepts. If do you pursue this study; it will probably take you at least 2 years to learn CANSLIM well. It is an art as well as a science.

What about actual results ? I am a Chief Engineer in Aerospace and the skills and knowledge I have picked up in the last 5 years with O'Neil's system has added about $100,000 each year to my savings since 2006. The time I spend on it each week is about 3 to 4 hours so it is like having a second job. I have not quit my day job but with the extra savings I have more peace of mind and with three children to send thru college in the near future I am confident I will be able to do so. In short - I may not be on easy street yet but I feel like I am out of the salt mines. This CANSLIM approach has worked well for me and I hope to improve my skills in it by continued study. I plan to get better at this.

Thank you Mr. O'Neil......you are a great teacher and wonderful philanthropist for the small investor. Highest recommendation for you to use this system to make money for you in the stock market.

William J. O'Neil is "the man" and all his books are "Five Star." Unfortunately, the Kindle DX version of this book rates only a single star - if that. The charts are basically washed out and unreadable - even when zoomed. I bought the DX version and saw it was a mistake. I'm buying the hard copy so I can learn from the charts.

A comprehensive (and demonstraby successful) investment approach - beyond mere stock screening, June 13, 2009
By William L. Lyman "FreeMarket" (ATLANTA, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
The CANSLIM stock investing methodology outlined in "How to Make Money in Stocks" is a time tested method that incorporates how the equity (stock) market(s) really work - for the passive, minority, outside investor. It is a 80/20 approach (with William O'Neil's approach, proprietary metrics and tools you can achieve 80% of the success with 20% of the effort) and explicitly rides the coattails of the market (read and react - don't fight/argue with the market). This system *IS* designed for the individual investor and small professional investor - I'm not sure it would scale for $250 million portfolios and above (but I'm not sure that it wouldn't either).

CANSLIM is part fundamental (here earnings growth is the primary focus), part structural, part timing/technical and part money/risk management (this part is **crucial** to investment success). The vast amount of other investing books will typically provide only a screening/selection approach, but "How to Make Money in Stocks" provides a comprehensive investment approach including stock selection, portfolio composition, selling criteria and money/risk management.

In short - buy stocks that have a reason to go up (a new product/management catalyst, a leading stock in one of the top 20% of the 196 IBD industry groups, strong earnings growth (>25%), solid Return on Equity (> 17%), reasonable leverage, etc.) when the stock is poised to breakout (strong and increasing institutional shareholder support, has outperformed at least 80% of the market over the previous 52 weeks, the stock is consolidating after a price run-up and breaks-out on trading volume that is significantly higher than the average trading volume over the last 50 days, etc.) and finally - and this is important - scale into your positions, pyramid up in the first 5% or price appreciation and cut you losses when the stock moves against you at 7-8% from your purchase price - NO QUESTIONS/NO EXCUSES/NO RATIONALIZATION.

Check out the independent and unbiased American Association of Individual Investors ([...]) - they have tracked the monthly performance of 56 stock screens since January 1998 (now 11+ years) and the CANSLIM screen is consistently in the top 3 screens with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) over that time in excess of 25%. While the AAII "recipe" for CANSLIM (and other screens for that matter)is a simplified approach and does not implement a strict constructionist approach (and contains buy rules only - no sell rules, just monthly re-screening - and no money/risk management techniques), it is an OUTSTANDING educational tool to learn about the pros and cons of the various stock screens and provides a starting point for anyone considering CANSLIM for their portfolios.

I personally have used CANSLIM with tremendous success since the late 1980s and participate in our local Meetup ([...]) where we utilize the CANSLIM approach. While most people assume this approach generates outstanding returns in the go-go bull markets (and it does), it really earns its keep in the down markets by utilizing the 7-8% stop loss on a stock by stock basis as part of a concentrated portfolio. It was a financial life safer in 1999/2000 and again in 2008/2009. Value investors (mutual funds), by contrast, were obliterated in 2008 - down some 50-60%! If that great "margin of safety" doesn't pay off in that environment - when does it?!

This growth/momentum approach differs substantially from a valuation driven approach (e.g., the Morningstar 5-star system based Morningstar's estimate of "fair value" of the stock compared to its current stock price). But if you trade based only on your (or a 3rd-party's) estimate of fair value, be prepared for some roller-coaster rides. In fact, check out Morningstar's own performance of their 5-star ranking system for the 2,000+ stocks that they cover and for their tortoise and hare portfolio - it pales in comparison to CANSLIM. The valuation only approach is for full-time professionals only - and even then - only the best of the best have been able to produce reasonable returns over time. Like the choice embedded in the title of Ned Davis's book "Being Right or Making Money", CANSLIM allows you to make money, while the purist value investors will argue about "being right" with *their8 discounted cash flow calculations (if only the market marched to that tune).

And finally, yes, the book discusses the Investors Business Daily (IBD) newspaper (and of course, CANSLIM) as the IBD newspaper and associated website ([...]) have the tools to easily implement the CANSLIM methodology (SmartSelect(TM) ratings and other proprietary metrics). And William O'Neil is not just another financial author - he is a very successful investor, entrepreneur and financial data services provider.

I wholeheartedly endorse this book and methodology - and recommend it to EVERYONE who is considering investing directly in common stocks. Even if they pursue another style of investing, there are many excellent lessons to embrace from "How to Make Money in Stocks".

I first read this book in 1999 and it was great timing as I saw the Tech Bear take hold in early 2000 and took action to avoid the debacle that followed. The best education from this book comes from understanding what stocks look like technically before they have big moves, the importance of group leadership and interpreting basic price/volume action of stocks. However, I am not a fan of buying breakouts and believe there are lower risk entry methods to take advantage of what O'Neil teaches. Overall, a great book on how the Market works.

Be careful taking "buy point" recommendations when reading IBD as they seem to label everything as a base when it is really not a sound pattern. Develop a discerning eye for what is a sound base with the proper technical and fundamental characteristics vs. just a pattern that looks like a base. In the current rally off of the March lows, there have been virtually no bases that meet the proper characteristics outlined in the book/IBD seminars so a heavy cash position is still the best trade until leadership shows up to feed a sustainable rally like we saw in March 2003.

I have been an active CANSLIM investor since 2005 now and subscribe to their IBD, eIBD and their Daily graphs research tool. My investment return have beaten s&p 500 by many folds in the last 5 years thanks to IBD.
One of the best investment book in stock is How to Make money in stocks.
Some of the valuable insights inside the book are

1. First 100 pages of 100 charts of the biggest winners of the last 100 years this itself is worth more than the money of the book and shows the exact buy points sell points and how to hold on to the winners.
2. There is a correlation between the market in 2009 and the market in 1938 and what will happen in the next few years.
3. Thanks to IBD big picture as always I entered into the market in 2009 during the March 12th follow up and have since gained more than 60% as of date.
4. Biggest winners of mine during this rally of March 12th 2009 are Nettease, Shanda Interactive, Visa, Vistaprint, Priceline, Netflix, HDFC bank.
5. After going through IBD I have stopped reading other publication or switching on TV to watch other finance programs.
6. Their CANSLIM approach kept me out of the bear market of 2008 and fully invested in cash except for few tradings of Continental resources when the oil commodity went up.
7. People say you cant time the market. I say you can time the market with IBD. Just read the IBD big picture and you can mark your entry and exit out of the market with good returns.
8. In a general uptrend one can make 25% easily and if compounded over 3 good stocks from IBD's 100 , 85-85 list and NASDAQ on the move one can double their money ina single year which no mutual fund will ever give.
9. This is one book which doesnt give opinions but only facts and its for one self to do the research and implement it when they invest.

Daily routine of 30 mins and 2 hours on weekend to profit immensely fromt the CANSLIM methodology described in the book .

1. Read IBD big picture.
2. Watch Daily stock analyis on the Investors.com website.
3. Watch market wrap at the website.
4. Read stocks on the move.
5. Read Nasdaq stocks on the move.
6 Invest in Nasdaq stocks they are the biggest movers.
7 Investors education at B1 of the paper.
8 Read the IBD 85-85, IBD 100 and Big Cap 20
9. Read the base reader column in IBD paper in B3.
10. Go through the research table and identify top 5 sectors and the leading stocks in that group from stock check up in investors.com.
11. Read Bill O Neil books every 3 months they are the only investment
book I ever read.
12. Read other books by Jesse Livermore, Nicholas Darvis, Gerald O loeb.
13. Dont over diversify your portfolio.
14. Three growth stocks with accelerating earning over past 3 quarters,
good ROE, accelerating revenure over past 3 qtrs and touching new high and coming out of a base and purchasing at the correct pivot point is all what is needed to get the portfolio of 3 good stocks.
15. One doesnt need to be invested at all times.
16. Time the market with IBD big picture and sit out during correction.
17. Attend IBD workshop atleast 2 times a year to rehearse the system .

Do the above and see your portfolio grow.

Thanks William O Neil for all the 100 charts this is a good addition to the chart school worksbook I have from level 3 course. Please keep the good work and congratulations to IBD for their 25th anniversary and for many more 25 years to come.

Good luck to all the investors who have a dream and who rely on Investors Business Daily to make their dream come true along with the 3 Ds in investing which I have learnt over the years from IBD which is Discipline, Dedication and Desire.