You Can Be A Stock Market Genius: Chapter 1

Value investor Joel Greenblatt takes the reader through a number of categories of investing examples where market inefficiencies exist. This book has numerous case studies, giving the investor a chance to learn and then apply the lessons to current and future market opportunities

In the opening chapter, Greenblatt explains how the ordinary investor has a chance against all the portfolio managers who dominate the market.

For one thing, many of the well-educated MBA-types subscribe to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which makes them measure risk in an absurd way according to value investors. Price volatility is considered the best measure for risk for these market participants, and since value investors evaluate risk upon better measures (e.g. risk of bankruptcy, revenue risk etc.), opportunities are out there.

Second, institutional managers have a much smaller domain in which to invest. A billion-dollar fund can only buy positions in billion-dollar companies, or else the positions will either be so small that they will not affect returns, or the position sizes would be large and market-moving. Ordinary investors, on the other hand, have thousands more stocks to choose from, increasing the chances of finding a diamond in the rough.

In order to benefit from these advantages, ordinary investors have to look in places that no one else does, since the opportunities available to them will not be publicized. Greenblatt compares this kind of investing to antique shopping for bargains. Antique shoppers that have some knowledge of the market for certain objects can often find bargains in out-of-the-way places where others of their ilk aren't competing with them. Greenblatt argues that small investors must employ a similar strategy, and this book is dedicated to illustrating how.