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Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits

And Other Writings
by Philip A. Fisher

The 1958 book that helped define growth investing — Fisher's own fifteen-point framework for finding the rare, truly exceptional company worth holding for decades, not just a bargain worth trading.

Start Reading — Chapter 1 →
Why this book

Fisher's influence runs deep and often unattributed — Warren Buffett has described his own investing approach as roughly 85% Graham and 15% Fisher, and that 15% is specifically the discipline of paying up for a truly outstanding, durable business rather than only hunting for statistical bargains.

Where Graham's course in this Book Club is a discipline of margin of safety and Lynch's is a practical playbook built on ordinary observation, Fisher's is something different again: a rigorous, qualitative framework for identifying the rare company capable of compounding for decades — and an explicit, deliberately contrarian case for almost never selling one once you've found it.

Table of Contents
The Philosophy of Growth Investing
1
Growth Over Bargains
2 min
Fisher's central belief: the very largest gains come from a handful of truly outstanding companies held for years — not from hunting bargains.
2
Scuttlebutt
2 min
Fisher's own term for research built on informal, real-world conversation — customers, competitors, and suppliers — not official filings alone.
The Fifteen Points
3
Growth Potential and Management's Will to Grow
2 min
Points 1 and 2 — is there room to grow, and does management actually intend to keep creating more room?
4
R&D, Sales Force, and Margins
2 min
Points 3 through 6 — turning growth potential into actual, defensible profit.
5
People — Labor, Executives, and Management Depth
2 min
Points 7 through 9 — the quality of an organization's people is a durable advantage that shows up in the numbers only with a lag.
6
Controls, Competitive Edge, and Outlook
2 min
Points 10 through 13 — knowing your own costs, having a real edge, and balancing time horizons without diluting shareholders.
7
Integrity — The Point That Overrides All Others
2 min
Points 14 and 15 — candor in bad times, and the one quality Fisher treats as closer to a veto than a score.
Buying and Holding Discipline
8
When to Buy
2 min
Watching for temporary setbacks in already-qualifying companies — but only after the fifteen-point homework is already done.
9
When to Sell (and Why Almost Never)
3 min
Three legitimate reasons to sell — and a deliberately contrarian argument that a rising price is not one of them.
10
Dividends and the Cost of Conservative Habits
2 min
Fisher's contrarian case that a dividend from a genuine growth company can be capital diverted from its own highest use.