Abstract. We consider a bounded linear operator T on a complex Banach space X and show that its spectral radius r(T ) satisfies r(T ) < 1 if all sequences ( x ′ , T n x ) n∈N 0 (x ∈ X, x ′ ∈ X ′ ) are, up to a certain rearrangement, contained in a principal ideal of the space c 0 of sequences which converge to 0. From this result we obtain generalizations of theorems of G. Weiss and J. van Neerven. We also prove a related result on C 0 -semigroups.