How effective are the company's R&D efforts
"I am an eager reader of whatever Phil has to say, and I recommend him to you." ---Warren Buffett This post will be about a topic I got stuck on while reading Philip Fisher's Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits. The book is great and elevates your thought process. In the third chapter What to buy: The Fifteen Points to Look for in a Common Stock under Point 3. How effective are the company's research and development efforts in relation to its size? I got hung up on what I am used to in business, where we daily have these measures and KPIs versus how investors value the effort of Research & Development (R&D)! The most common measure of judgment is of course how much a company invest yearly (or last 5 years) in R&D in total, R&D as of total Sales (especially compared to the competition) and how the trend is developing during a longer period (of course this probably depends on how long the Time-To-Market is, i.e. from Idea (or D...