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Recent Interview: Joel Greenblatt Discusses the Magic Formula

In an interview with Forbes Joel Greenblatt discusses his book The Little Book That Beats the Market and his magic formula.

Some main points from the interview:

Joel Greenblatt looks for cheap companies based on EBIT/ Enterprise value. This concept of cheap is inspired by Benjamin Graham.

Greenblatt also looks for quality companies. This is the qualitative concept he learned from Buffett. For quality Greenblatt looks for high returns on capital. Greenblatt believes that high returns on capital is the best measurement for finding the highest quality business.

Greenblatt for years taught his formula (cheap and quality) and believed it would outperform the market, but never conducted tests to prove it. Several years ago he looked at statistical data and it confirmed his formula.

Not only does the magic formula outperform the S&P 500, but the highest deciles of stocks in the Magic Formula outperform the lowest deciles. The stocks ranked the highest outperformed the stocks ranked the lowest within the Magic formula.

The formula has outperformed the market 72% to 5% since the book was published.

Greenblatt states that if you go through the list of stocks; there is a problem with every single one of them. Greenblatt says that since the companies are so cheap when they perform well they are able to compensate for the stocks that do not perform well.

The formula usually outperforms in both up and down markets.





About the author:

My investment ideas have been inspired by many of value investors including Benjamin Graham, Charles Royce, John Neff, Joel Greenblatt, Peter Lynch, Seth Klarman,Martin Whitman and Bruce Greenwald. .I live with my wife and daughter in Monsey, NY. I can be contacted jacobwolinsky(AT)gmail.com and my blog is www.valuewalk.com

Visit Jacob Wolinsky's Website

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Joel Greenblatt (Updated on 05/22/2013)

The Strategy of Ben Graham – Warren Buffett’s Mentor

From 1923 to 1957 Warren Buffett’s mentor, Ben Graham, followed a strategy of investing in net-nets. He said: “It always seemed, and still seems ridiculously simple to say that if one can acquire a diversified group of common stocks at a price less than the...net current assets alone…the results should be quite satisfactory. They were so in our experience, for more than 30 years.”
Today net-nets are rare. They are collected under GuruFocus’ Net-Net Screener. GuruFocus also publishes a monthly newsletter which recommends the safest net-nets. All of these are included in GuruFocus Premium Membership.

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