The Little Book of Stock Market Profits

A wide variety of strategies have been identified over the years, which purportedly outperform the stock market. Some of these include buying undervalued stocks while others rely on technical analysis techniques. It's fair to say no one method is fool proof and most go through both up and down periods. The challenge for an investor is picking the right method at the right time. The Little Book of Stock Market Profits shows you how to achieve this elusive goal and make the most of your time in today's markets.

Written by Mitch Zacks, Senior Portfolio Manager of Zacks Investment Management, this latest title in the Little Book series reveals stock market strategies that really work and then shows you how they can be made even better. It skillfully highlights earnings-based investing strategies, the hallmark of the Zacks process, but it also identifies strategies based on valuations, seasonal patterns and price momentum.

Specifically, the book:

• Identifies stock market investment strategies that work, those that don't, and what it takes for an individual investor to truly succeed in today's dynamic market
• Discusses how the performance of each strategy examined can be improved by combining into them into a multifactor approach
• Gives investors a clear path to integrating the best investment strategies of all time into their own personal portfolio

Investing can be difficult, but with the right strategies you can improve your overall performance. The Little book of Stock Market Profits will show you how.

Chapter One The Crystal Ball of Wall Street 1

Chapter Two Size Matters 19

Chapter Three Once More Unto the Breach 37

Chapter Four The Big Mo 59

Chapter Five The Inside Story 77

Chapter Six Song of the Shares 93

Chapter Seven Cash Is King 111

Chapter Eight It’s Worth What?! 127

Chapter Nine Earnings Surprises: The Gift that Keeps on Giving 145

Chapter Ten A Time to Plant and a Time to Reap 165

Chapter Eleven The More the Merrier 185

Acknowledgments 203

MITCH ZACKS is Senior Portfolio Manager at Zacks Investment Management. He is also the author of Ahead of the Market and has written a weekly finance column for the Chicago Sun-Times. Zacks earned a degree in economics from Yale University and an MBA in analytic finance from The University of Chicago. Prior to joining Zacks, he was an investment banking analyst with Lazard Freres in New York.

Over the years, various approaches to investing have emerged, but it’s fair to say that some of them have been less than impressive. Today, the challenge for almost every investor is finding the right ways to earn above average returns. The Little Book of Stock Market Profits will show you exactly how to achieve this elusive goal.

Author Mitch Zacks—Senior Portfolio Manager at Zacks Investment Management—understands what it takes to make it in even the most dynamic markets, and now, with The Little Book of Stock Market Profits, he breaks down some of the best investing strategies of all time and reveals how you can effectively incorporate them into your own investing endeavors.

Engaging and informative, this reliable guide takes you chapter by chapter through various strategies that will help you improve your investment process, while allowing you to take advantage of certain market anomalies. Along the way, it skillfully addresses:

• Using momentum-based strategies and what type of stocks this method works best with
• Piggybacking on the trading decisions made by informed individuals—from large shareholders to CEOs—through the use of publicly disclosed insider data
• Understanding Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) and whether they will help, or hurt, your portfolio
• Following specific rules when buying value stocks
• Implementing an earnings accrual investment strategy that helps you try to outperform the market by effectively focusing on the quality of earnings
• Handling earnings announcements and what to make of post-earnings announcement drifts
• Following seasonal patterns in your investing activities by looking at common calendar anomalies such as the January Barometer, May/October Effect, and much more

Rounding out this detailed discussion of equity investing, Zacks touches upon the use of multifactor models in this process. Here, you’ll learn how combining two or more different factors—for instance stocks trading at attractive valuation metrics and exhibiting strong price momentum—can generate returns that are greater than any one of the factors by itself.

Investing can be difficult, but with the right strategies you can improve your overall performance. The Little Book of Stock Market Profits will show you how. “It’s a fast read and offers useful advice for the active investor.” Seeking Alpha