Pages

Search This Blog

Sunday, June 5, 2016

One Up on Wall Street- A Short Review

I have just completed my first reading of Peter Lynch's classic text, "One Up on Wall Street," recently.

While the contents of this book is extremely palatable, it contains very little technical information and little is mentioned about valuation. I am a little amused because while this book is easily understandable, it should be best read by someone who had a look at more technical books such as "5 Rules to Successful Stock Investing."

The danger is that Mr Lynch made it sound too easy.

There are of course good takeaways from this book, such as classifying companies into 6 different categories, which are:
  • Turnarounds- Stocks like Noble who are issuing new shares would be frown upon by Peter Lynch as they usually does not bode well for investors in the long run.
  • Slow Growers- usually dividend stocks. Various REITs, ST Engineering comes to mind. This company desperately need a breakthrough of some sorts to increase revenues
  • Fast Growers- Best World, who is expanding into China, have a sizable market to grow at.
  • Stalwarts- Apple could be deem as a stalwart, but I thinking of DBS when it comes to local markets
  • Cyclicals- Property Developers, Keppel, Sembcorp Marine. Times are bad now, but things will definitely be better if their balance sheet remains healthy. Basically cyclical companies generate tons of revenues during good times.
  • Asset Plays- Stocks that are the proverbial "50cents for a dollar." Could be as simple as cash (Sing Holdings, possibly), property (SMRT with its many malls) , or companies holding equities of well-to-do equities (Yahoo comes in mind).
I also love the idea of developing a "story" for your stock. You need to pitch a stock, to yourself, and it serves as a good reason to sell it when the story changes.

For e.g. assuming a stock like GSK, who is paying excellent dividends but isn't growing rapidly (a slow grower), started to fail in paying a dividend, that will be cause for concern.

An asset play that has its property valued down recently could also be cause for concern.

As with most books I think it is worthwhile to re-read them a couple of times to digest the concepts fully, and I am in the process of doing so.

Peter Lynch's One up on Wall Street in Book Depository

No comments:

Post a Comment

September 2024 Portfolio Update

As I wrote, Alibaba just closed another 7.3% up in one day. CSI300 index went up about 7.21% itself (at one point, it was 10%). "The bo...