Philip A. Fisher

Philip A. Fisher was an American investor whose Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits pioneered the qualitative approach to growth investing and influenced Warren Buffett.

Philip A. Fisher founded the investment firm Fisher & Company in 1931 and managed money for over seven decades, developing in the process one of the most coherent and influential frameworks for long-term equity investing. Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits, first published in 1958, remains in print and continues to be recommended by serious investors — most famously Warren Buffett, who described himself as “85% Benjamin Graham and 15% Phil Fisher,” the latter influence being primarily qualitative.

Where Benjamin Graham focused on quantitative measures of value — balance sheet analysis, book value, earnings multiples — Fisher was interested in what he called the qualitative dimensions of business quality: the character of management, the competitive moat of a business, the quality of its research and development, its labour relations, the depth of its sales organisation. His “scuttlebutt” method — gathering intelligence from customers, competitors, and suppliers as well as financial statements — was ahead of its time in recognising that the most important information about a business is often not in its accounts.

Fisher’s investment framework emphasises buying exceptional businesses and holding them for very long periods, resisting the temptation to trade on short-term information. This approach has proved highly durable and is reflected in the strategies of many successful long-term investors. The prose in Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits is somewhat dry and the business examples are dated, but the underlying framework for thinking about what makes a business genuinely excellent — as opposed to merely cheap — remains as valid as it was when Fisher wrote it. Paths to Wealth through Common Stocks and Conservative Investors Sleep Well are useful companion volumes.