Serious international investors able to choose their own stocks will find a useful reference in The Top 100 International Growth Stocks. Coauthor Peggy Edersheim Kalb is a financial journalist and former Smith Barney money manager. Scott E. Kalb manages the Smith Barney International Equity Fund. From a universe of 10,000 non-U.S. companies, the authors selected 100 relatively large ones (minimum market capitalization $500 million) that have long demonstrated "an exceptional ability to grow their businesses at superior rates in all kinds of conditions, climates, and political environments." The book offers a three-page report on each of the 100 companies, most of which trade on U.S. markets. Among the top 100 are many household names, from Heineken to Sony. But the list also includes dozens of companies that U.S. investors should know but probably don't, such as Cifra, Mexico's largest food retailer; Astra of Sweden, one of the world's largest drug companies; and Hutchison Whampoa, Hong Kong's preeminent conglomerate. Aside from providing investment leads, the book is a fascinating tour of companies that are shaping the world's economic future.

The idea of investing in small, rapidly growing companies has enormous appeal because it can be so rewarding. Almost everyone has heard stories about investors who have made small fortunes buying stock in great companies when they were still very small and not yet well known, and most of their growth as well as stock appreciation was still ahead of them. But this is a difficult and risky style of investing; many small companies falter and never produce the kind of growth that is expected of them. This book is written for investors who would like to be more active in the emerging growth sector of the stock market but are wary of the risks and feel they have to know more about this style of investing to be comfortable with it. It will lead you through every aspect of the investment process, along the way developing guidelines to help you realize the high returns that are possible with emerging growth stocks.