So, what can you expect to learn from "Super Performance Stocks" by Richard Love? Here are just a few key takeaways:
Below is an exhaustive, deep-dive analysis of Richard Love’s core concepts, the anatomy of a super performance stock, and how to apply these 1970s principles to the modern, tech-driven stock market. Who Was Richard Love?
Superperformance Stocks is more than a book; it is a strategic framework. Richard Love provided individual investors with a powerful combination of a macro market "clock" in the 4-year political cycle, along with a precise checklist of fundamental and technical characteristics for selecting the market's true leaders. In an industry often cluttered with ephemeral fads and complex algorithms, Love's data-driven, common-sense approach has proven to be a durable source of market wisdom. For anyone serious about finding the next multi-bagger, Richard Love's masterpiece remains an essential, guiding light. super performance stocks richard love pdf
The analysis suggests: "Most of stocks will be grossly overvalued at the end of their superperformance run... The company might report disappointing earnings, weak guidance, new (now old) products saturate the market, become obsolete, or there are better new products by the competition."
: Deregulation, demographic changes, or macroeconomic trends that create an expanding Total Addressable Market (TAM). Low Valuation Relative to Growth Potential So, what can you expect to learn from
Richard Love was an economic analyst and investment researcher who dedicated years to studying the most explosive stocks in market history. Writing in the late 1970s—a period characterized by stagflation, high interest rates, and volatile sideways markets—Love sought to identify the universal characteristics that allowed specific companies to defy broader economic gravity and gain hundreds or thousands of percent in brief windows of time.
To find the answer, Love conducted an exhaustive historical study of American equities spanning several decades. He isolated the absolute top-performing stocks of each era, analyzed their financial statements prior to their breakouts, and identified the common denominators that fueled their ascents. The culmination of this research was his 1977 masterpiece. The Core Philosophy of Super Performance Stocks Superperformance Stocks is more than a book; it
Writing on Seeking Alpha, market analysts have applied Love’s models to modern giants like Apple (AAPL). Using Love's criteria, Apple was a classic superperformance stock, supported by massive earnings acceleration and new products (iPhone). However, following Love’s rules, one can identify the "end" phase when the growth decelerates.
In 1977, investors had to manually parse through chart books and physical financial ledgers. Today, you can filter thousands of stocks instantly using tools like Finviz, MarketSmith, or TradingView. Set your screeners to look for: Under $5 Billion (Small to Mid-Cap). EPS Growth (QoQ): Greater than 25% or 50%. Sales Growth (QoQ): Greater than 25%.
This leads to a counter-intuitive conclusion: The best time to get ready for superperformance stocks is when the market looks its worst.