📖Philip Fisher
Profit Margin Analysis
Improving profit margins signal competitive strength.
Look for companies with consistently improving profit margins. This indicates pricing power, operational efficiency, and competitive advantage.
🏠 Everyday Analogy
📖 Core Interpretation
In Profit Margin Analysis, Philip Fisher focuses on the gap between price and value. Returns come from paying less than what a business is worth, not from guessing short-term market moves.
💎 Key Insight：Margin improvement indicates pricing power and efficiency.
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❓ Why It Matters
Ignoring valuation turns even good companies into poor investments. Overpaying compresses future returns and leaves little margin when assumptions are wrong.
🎯 How to Practice
Estimate intrinsic value with conservative assumptions, set clear buy ranges, and act only when price offers a meaningful discount with acceptable downside.
⚠️ Common Pitfalls
Confusing a low price with true cheapness
Using one metric without business context
Overly optimistic assumptions that erase margin of safety
📚 Case Studies
1
IBM Structural Weakness Realized (1993)
IBM, once dominant in mainframes, struggles with PCs and services transition. Market share declines, culture resists change, and earnings disappoint repeatedly.
✨ Outcome：Using Fisher’s criteria, an investor sells as it becomes clear IBM’s advantages eroded, later redeploying into emerging technology leaders of the 1990s.
2
Motorola Growth Insight (1956)
Applied scuttlebutt by interviewing engineers, suppliers, and competitors to assess Motorola’s transistor leadership and R&D culture.
✨ Outcome：Built a large, long-term position; investment compounded for decades as Motorola became a dominant electronics and semiconductor player.
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