SUPER STOCKS

How to pick stock market rejects with uncommon appreciation potential. Fisher, a West Coast money manager, advises investors to concentrate on seldom-used price/sales, as opposed to widely-followed price/earnings, ratios. He also counsels concentrating on relatively unseasoned growth issues changing hands for less than one times per-share sales. (When the P/S multiple gets above three, it's generally time to sell.) In the case of larger, more mature companies, he reduces these benchmarks by sizable margins. Fisher favors P/S screening because he believes that corporate profits are a result, not a cause, and calculations can be highly arbitrary. Revenues, generally less volatile, are a more accurate indication of an enterprise's vitality--and viability. But Fisher doesn't rest his analysis there: investors should also evaluate such conventional yardsticks as debt/equity ratios, liquidity, and R & D expenditures relative to market capitalization before taking a position in any stock. He has a particular penchant for high fliers that have been brought to earth--though it may take up to five years, he warns, for workout values to be realized. Apart from the recent success stories that dot the text, we're reminded of IBM's anything-but-Super Stock performance until after WW II. Fisher's by-the-numbers system is not for neophytes, but its fresh perspectives should prove attractive to thoughtful veterans.