24 Essential Lessons for Investment Success

This book is an elaboration on the investment techniques in Mr. O'Neil's prior book, How to Make Money in Stocks. The elaboration focuses on additional insights into avoiding losses and using technical analysis (examining stock price and volume charts) to pick optimal stocks and times to buy and sell. If you haven't already read How to Make Money in Stocks, this book will lack context. I suggest that you not read this book until you have read that one. If you have read that one, this book will be valuable to you only if you plan to do your own stock picking and wish to use the Momentum Growth Investing model that Mr. O'Neil recommends in that book, and supports in Investors Business Daily. If this book is not yet right for you, based on these qualifications, you need read no further. If this book fits, then, let me go on to provide some caveats. First, it is often hard to limit your losses in the kinds of stocks recommended by this technique. Following a company warning about earnings, it is not unusual for these stocks to fall 15-40 percent without ever trading at any price in between. So your losses may well be larger than he suggests here. Second, technical analysis is a field that is filled with ambiguity. Your success in reading charts will not be as good as these examples suggest. Many academic studies fail to find any value in technical analysis.Third, the kind of stocks that are recommended can perform very poorly if the market goes through a prolonged drop in valuation (as last occurred from 1973-1975). You will be buying stocks that are trading at enormous multiples. You could experience more sustained losses than Mr. O'Neil suggests in such a changed market environment, if it were to recur.Fourth, few individuals have the discipline to adopt and follow a philosophy like this over a long enough time period to be successful.Fifth, if you are curious, it doesn't hurt to look. But remember that over most time periods 90 percent of professional investors do not match the market averages. And they have a lot of advantages you don't have. Be sure to also look at John Bogle's, Common Sense About Mutual Funds, to get the other side of the story.Having heard the caveats, let me say that Mr. O'Neil's advice is basically sound, well articulated, easy to follow, and balanced. It will make good reading for those who want to move toward developing the skills needed to be a self-directed investor in growth stocks being pushed along by earnings and investor momentum. Good luck with your investments! May they do well regardless of the philosophy you follow!

O'Neil has attracted a wide and deep following as founder of Investor's Business Daily and as author of a previous best-selling book, How to Make Money in Stocks. In this book, he offers 24 "essential lessons" which he has learned from his extensive prior experience. Each of the "essential lessons" makes sense but I think they have the greatest value only when used together (in combination) as you formulate an investment plan. Once you have your plan and begin to implement it, understand that your work has only begun...not ended. Track earnings and sales, frequently check relative price strength, follow chart patterns, etc. (O'Neil's Lesson 11 explains "How to Read Stock Charts Like a Pro", not occasionally but "frequently" and better yet daily.) No doubt sophisticated investors view this book as "simplistic" and "obvious." For them, it probably is. But for most of the rest of us, this book provides helpful explanations and sound advice. Also, as more people participate in 401 (k) plans and exercise stock options, a book such as this can give them a better understanding of their investments. I also recommend this book as a gift to recent graduates of college and universities. The sooner they understand the vocabulary and the concepts of stock investments, the better.

O'Neils best explanation of how to use his paper to stay on top of the market. He uses down to earth language to explain what he is talking about and make sense of the market. This book is by far his best. Yes, it pushes the IBD paper but when you look for what's in second place there is nothing. What? the WSJ you ask, you got to be kidding. One of the best investment books you will read. When reading keep a pen handy so you can mark all the important parts. My book is seriously underlined. Thanks Bill for sharing your tremendous knowlege and insight of the market.

Anything by Investor's Business Daily is well worth the money, and this book is no exception. Watch out for anyone giving this a bad review. A lot of people aren't wise enough or disciplined enough to follow the advice in this book, so they blame the source instead. Any responsible person can go a long way with this book!

As usual, O'Neil puts out a must-have product for intermediate to neophyte traders. It should also do well as a reference for experienced traders. O'Neil has taught his methods to thousands of traders over the years and made a lot of people very happy.The advice here isn't anything that hasn't been seen elsewhere, but it hasn't been put together in quite this way before either. If you aren't quite sure of the success of his methods, go no further than a terrific set of interviews with two of his top disciples. Kevin Marder (another O'Neil-o-phile) formerly of CBS Marketwatch, published the interview at tradingmarkets.com. Its a good read and attests to the potential of O'Neil's strategies.