By "do well" I don't mean grow. As you point out, the air travel industry can grow and grow without actually doing well. Seats on planes are a commodity item, t

By "do well" I don't mean grow. As you point out, the air travel industry can grow and grow without actually doing well. Seats on planes are a commodity item, the barrier to entry into the airline business is simply cash, and there's always someone ready to cut their prices right to the bone (and beyond) and in doing so shred any profit you might have hoped to pull in. sure, often growth is a good sign, but I'm looking for a sector that will jack up the profits. If that's through growth, great. UK house builders, for example, have a reputation of not growing as fast as they could because they want to hold up the ridiculous prices. Many (not all, of course) companies are actually quite bad at growing, especially if their core business is mature and saturated; I avoid companies that always take their profits and, instead of giving them to me, blow them on ill-considered attempts to expand beyond their ability. Sure, I miss some (and some of the ever-expanding behemoths are a perpetual mystery to me; I avoid companies whose ever-increasing stock prices are based on the hope of a shiny far-future), but on the whole it's working out. As far as I'm concerned, the default place for profits is in my pocket (and then in other companies). On average, it seems that I can invest it better in other companies than the company can reinvest it in itself.