The Making of a Market Guru: Forbes Presents 25 Years of Ken Fisher

Chapter 1. 1984: A Not So Orwellian Year

"I specialize in out-of-favor small cap growth companies, which means, by definition, ones with problems. They can be good buys if those problems can be solved."

—"Cherchez the Sales Rep," July 16, 1984

"The uncanny degree to which successful intermediate- to long-term performers come from the ranks of low PSR [price-to-sales ratio] stocks bothers some investors because it seems to have nothing to do with earnings, which everyone has been trained to accept as the driving force behind a stock's price."

—"Why Glamour Doesn't Pay," August 13, 1984

Nineteen-eighty-four was quite a year. Fortunately, it didn't involve nearly as much government oppression or book burning as George Orwell's 1984 foretold, but it was eventful nonetheless. Ronald Reagan trounced Walter Mondale to secure his second term as president, the Cold War was in full swing, the Olympics were in Los Angeles sans the Russians and many of their comrades, and Larry Bird's Boston Celtics defeated Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA finals. Heck, Michael Jackson's hair even burst into flames in a Pepsi ad (he also won a record eight Grammys that year, so it wasn't a total loss for the King of Pop). And a relative newcomer, managing just $60 million, started writing for Forbes magazine.

From an investing standpoint, 1984 was a bit of a bore. In the US, the S&P 500 was up a paltry 6.3 percent.^[4] Foreign stocks rose only slightly more, just 7.9 percent — both well below their ...