Kenneth Fisher Biography

Kenneth Fisher was born on November 29, 1950, in San Francisco, California, and grew up in San Mateo, California. He is the youngest son of stock investor Philip A. Fisher, and his wife, Dorothy.

As a teen, Kenneth Fisher termed high school a waste of time, and dropped out to enroll in community college so he could take better classes. He then proceeded to ‘Humboldt State University’ in California, where he studied forestry, before changing his line of study to economics. He graduated in 1972 with a degree in economics.

Kenneth Fisher returned to San Francisco after his graduation, and started working at his father's money management firm, 'Fisher & Co.' first as an investor, then as a merger and acquisitions consultant, and finally as a research analyst in portfolio management. During this period, he also studied investment theory, forming his own opinions and views about investing.

He went on to establish his own firm in 1979, ‘Fisher Investments’, with just $250. This money management firm has seen large-scale success, expanding from the U.S. to U.K. and Canada in 2000, and opening a subsidiary to serve the European market in 2012.

As of 2020, ‘Fisher Investments’ is working with around 40,000 individual investors, and 175 institutions with its four official branches- ’Fisher Investments Institutional Group’, ‘Fisher Investments Private Client Group’, ‘Fisher Investments 401(k) Solutions Group’, and ‘Fisher Investments International Group’.

Kenneth Fisher held the post of CEO in ‘Fisher Investments’ until July 2016, when he stepped down, and took on the role of Executive Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer.

Between the years 1984 to 2017, Fisher wrote a column for ‘Forbes’ magazine, called ‘Portfolio Strategy’; this column gave Fisher the honour of being the longest continuously-running columnist in the history of ‘Forbes’. He has also written for multiple columns in newspapers and magazines worldwide, and has contributed to several academic journals too.

In mid-2007, Kenneth Fisher acquired a stake in a German-owned asset management company owned by Thomas Grüner, and they subsequently changed the name to 'Grüner Fisher Investments'.

In 1984, Kenneth Fisher wrote his book, Super Stocks in which he detailed his work in identifying and testing the price-to-sales ratio (PSR).

In 2006, he came out with the book The Only Three Questions That Count, which claimed that the PSR was in common use by then, and was not as useful an indicator for undervalued stocks. This book was in the New York Times bestseller list.

His other books include: The Ten Roads to Riches in 2008, How to Smell a Rat IN 2009, and Debunkery in 2010. He has written six more books, his latest book was released in 2015, named Beat the Crowd: How You Can Out-Invest the Herd by Thinking Differently.

In support for his love of forestry, in 2006, Kenneth Fisher endowed his old college, the 'Humboldt State University', with $3.50 million, establishing the 'Kenneth L. Fisher Chair in Redwood Forest Ecology', which is responsible for supporting ecological research, and giving help to graduate students, along with support for labs and field equipment. He has also documented more than 35 abandoned logging camps in the 'Santa Cruz Mountains', collecting various 19th century artifacts from them.

Kenneth Fisher and his wife Sherrilyn, have donated $500,000 to the 'San Mateo Public Library Foundation for the Kenneth and Sherrilyn Fisher Journalism Center', and $7.50 million to the 'Sherrilyn and Ken Fisher Center for Environmental Infectious Diseases' at 'Johns Hopkins University'.

Kenneth Fisher advocated the use of the 'Price-to-Sales (P/S)' ratio as opposed to the 'Price-to-Earnings' ratio that was commonly used by investors at the time, in his theoretical work, including in his 1984 book 'Super Stocks' which became that year's bestselling stock market book. American investor James O'Shaughnessy credits Kenneth Fisher as the first person to use the P/S ratio as a forecasting tool.

His research on market forecasting, published in 2000 with Meir Statman of 'Santa Clara University', got Kenneth Fisher a 'Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy Award'.

He was given a 'Distinguished Alumni Award' by his alma mater 'Humboldt State', in 2007.

In 2009, he was awarded the 'CEO Summit Award for Challenging Conventional Wisdom', by 'Tiburon Strategic Advisors'.

Kenneth Fisher was ranked as one of industry's 30 most influential people over the last 30 years, in 'ThinkAdvisor's' 'Thirty for Thirty' list, in 2010.

In 2011, 'Investment Advisor Magazine' rated him as one of the top 25 most influential figures in the financial industry.

Kenneth Fisher was appointed to the board of advisors of the 'Forbes School of Business' at 'Ashford University' in 2015. He appeared on their 'Forbes 400' list at #200, and was #606 on 'Forbes’ 'The World’s Billionaires' list in 2018.

Kenneth Fisher is married to Sherrilyn and they have three sons together, namely, Nathan, Jesse and Clayton. Nathan Fisher holds the post of Senior Executive Vice President at ‘Fisher Investments 401(k) Solutions Group’.

On October 8, 2019, at a conference sponsored by 'Tiburon Strategic Advisors', Kenneth Fisher made various unsettling comments, likening getting new clients to getting into a girl's pants, speaking about his belief that charities were immoral, and even making explicit remarks about genitalia. Multiple reports suggested that this was not the only time Kenneth Fisher has made comments such as these; most notable of which was a derogatory comment against previous American president Abraham Lincoln. While Kenneth Fisher initially shrugged off these reports, severe backlash to the October 2019 event forced him to take an apologetic stance. However, multiple investors withdrew their funds from 'Fisher Investments', including the state of Michigan, the city of Boston, as well as other institutional clients.

Kenneth Fisher played slide guitar in dive bars while he was setting up his own business.