Investor wiki

Joel Greenblatt

Born 1957, American, founder of Gotham Capital, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School

Buy good businesses at cheap prices, by a strict and mechanical rule. The architect of the Magic Formula and one of the most successful special-situations investors of the past four decades.

Biography

Joel Greenblatt was born on 13 December 1957 in Great Neck, New York, into a Jewish family. He attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, graduating with a BS in 1979 and an MBA in 1980. His first job out of business school was at Bear Stearns, where he worked on risk arbitrage. He left Bear Stearns to co-found Gotham Capital in 1985 with his Wharton classmate Robert Goldstein, raising 7 million dollars in initial capital, much of it from junk-bond financier Michael Milken's network.

Gotham Capital ran from 1985 to 1994 and compounded at roughly 40 percent annually before fees. The fund's strategy was concentrated special-situation investing: spin-offs, recapitalisations, restructurings, post-bankruptcy emergences, and other corporate-event dislocations where institutional sellers were forced to clear shares at sub-NAV prices. The strategy is documented in detail in Greenblatt's 1997 book You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, which despite the tabloid-sounding title is one of the more advanced practitioner texts on special-situation analysis.

In 1994, Gotham Capital returned external client capital. Greenblatt has stated that the fund's asset base had outgrown the special-situation opportunities he was best at, and that he wanted to continue running the strategy at a more capital-efficient scale. He became an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School in 1996, teaching the Special Situations Investing class, which has run continuously for three decades and is one of the most over-subscribed electives in the value-investing curriculum.

In 2005 Greenblatt published The Little Book That Beats the Market, which introduced the Magic Formula to a popular audience. The book became a New York Times bestseller and remains one of the most influential popular investment books of the past twenty years. The accompanying website, magicformulainvesting.com, lets retail investors view the live cohort of stocks passing the formula at any given moment. Greenblatt subsequently launched Gotham Asset Management, which runs long-short mutual funds applying the Magic Formula framework to outside investors at scale. He continues to teach, write, and serve on the boards of several non-profit educational organisations.

Investment philosophy in seven principles

Each principle is documented in Greenblatt's published canon (You Can Be a Stock Market Genius 1997, The Little Book That Beats the Market 2005, The Little Book Still Beats the Market 2010, The Big Secret for the Small Investor 2011, Common Sense 2020).

1. The Magic Formula

Greenblatt's most famous published methodology, introduced in The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005). The formula is mechanical and brutally simple: rank the investable universe (typically the top 3,500 US stocks by market cap, excluding financials and utilities) twice. Once by return on capital (operating earnings divided by net working capital plus net fixed assets) and once by earnings yield (operating earnings divided by enterprise value). Sum the two ranks per stock. Buy the twenty to thirty highest-summed-rank stocks, hold each for one year, then rebalance the portfolio annually. The thesis is that this combination identifies good businesses (high return on capital) bought at cheap prices (high earnings yield), which is the essence of value investing reduced to two ratios. The original backtest over 1988 to 2004 reported 17.4 percent CAGR versus the S&P 500's 12.4 percent over the same window. Subsequent academic out-of-sample tests through the 2000s and 2010s have produced weaker but still positive results, with the implementation difficulty (stocks pass the formula but are uncomfortable to hold during drawdowns, causing real-world investors to underperform the backtest) being well documented. The 2005 book is one of the most influential popular investment books of the past twenty years and the namesake of invest-like's Greenblatt-Fit Score.

2. Return on capital matters more than growth

Greenblatt's framework de-emphasises raw earnings growth and emphasises the rate at which the business produces operating income from its capital base. A company growing earnings at 25 percent annually by deploying capital at 8 percent returns on capital destroys value relative to one growing earnings at 10 percent annually at 30 percent returns on capital, because the former is investing in projects whose payback is below the cost of capital. The Magic Formula's return-on-capital denominator uses net working capital plus net fixed assets (rather than total assets, which would include intangibles like goodwill from acquisitions) precisely because Greenblatt wants the measure to reflect the productivity of the operating asset base, not the price the company paid for past acquisitions. The framework is closely related to Buffett's emphasis on return on incremental invested capital, and to Charlie Munger's observation that over the long run a stock's return converges to the underlying business's return on capital. invest-like's Greenblatt-Fit Score uses an EBIT-based return on capital with the original Greenblatt denominator definition.

3. Earnings yield as the price discipline

The second leg of the Magic Formula, earnings yield, is operating earnings (EBIT) divided by enterprise value (market cap plus debt minus cash). The construction is deliberately different from the conventional P/E ratio. EBIT is preferred to net income because it strips out tax-jurisdiction differences and capital-structure choices, allowing direct comparison of operating performance across companies. Enterprise value is preferred to market cap because it accounts for debt; a company with a low P/E but high debt is not actually cheap once you have to retire the debt. Greenblatt's choice produces an inverted earnings multiple comparable across capital structures, which is why it functions as a clean second-axis ranking. The formula is agnostic about whether you think the multiple should be high or low in any given environment; it simply asks which stocks in the universe are cheap relative to peers right now. invest-like surfaces enterprise-value-based earnings yield as one of the Valuation pillar metrics across all seven frameworks, not just the Greenblatt one.

4. Mechanical rebalancing beats discretion

One of the most counterintuitive findings in The Little Book That Beats the Market is that the Magic Formula's reported returns are achieved precisely by mechanical, emotion-free annual rebalancing. The investors in Greenblatt's documented studies who tried to add discretion (skipping stocks that looked dangerous, holding winners past the one-year mark, doubling down on losers) systematically underperformed the pure mechanical version. The reason is that the formula does best by buying companies that look temporarily ugly (recent earnings disappointment, sector out of favour, governance question) but whose long-term fundamentals are intact. Discretion tends to filter out exactly the names that produce the most return. The lesson aligns with the broader academic literature on simple rules versus expert judgment: in noisy environments with limited feedback, mechanical rules outperform discretion not because the rules are smart but because human judgment is systematically biased. invest-like documents the same finding: stocks scoring high on the Greenblatt-Fit composite that users override are not, on average, those whose subsequent returns justify the override.

5. Spin-offs, recapitalisations, and special situations

Before the Magic Formula, Greenblatt was best known for his work on spin-offs, recapitalisations, restructurings, mergers, and bankruptcies, documented in his earlier and more advanced book You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997). The thesis is that these corporate-event situations are structurally underfollowed: institutional investors are typically forced to sell the spin-off shares received because the parent is removed from their index or because the spin-off is too small to meet their minimum-position threshold. The forced selling creates short-term price dislocations that fundamental analysis can exploit. Greenblatt's Gotham Capital compounded at roughly 40 percent annually from 1985 to 1994 doing primarily this kind of work, before returning external capital to clients and continuing as a family office. The principle extends to any situation where information asymmetry creates price dislocations: rights offerings, partial spin-offs, post-bankruptcy emergence, complex multi-class share structures. The pattern repeats decade after decade because the institutional incentives that create the forced selling do not change.

6. Be willing to look stupid for years

Greenblatt has been candid in interviews about the psychological cost of running the Magic Formula in practice. The portfolio passes through long stretches (sometimes two or three consecutive years) of underperformance relative to the index. The 1999 to 2000 dot-com peak was particularly difficult; the formula picked unfashionable industrial, consumer, and financial names while the index was driven by technology stocks the formula did not pass. Retail Magic Formula investors who could not stomach the relative drawdown switched away from the formula at exactly the wrong moment, locking in the underperformance. Greenblatt's framing in subsequent interviews and in The Little Book Still Beats the Market (2010 update) is that the formula's edge survives precisely because most investors cannot tolerate the periods of looking foolish. If everyone could, the edge would arbitrage away. The principle generalises beyond the Magic Formula to any rule-based investing approach: the edge lives in the gap between what the rule prescribes and what most investors are willing to do.

7. Teach the next generation

Greenblatt has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1996, where he teaches the Special Situations Investing class, one of the most over-subscribed electives in the value-investing curriculum. The class covers the spin-off, recapitalisation, and special-situation framework documented in You Can Be a Stock Market Genius, with current-events case studies drawn from situations Greenblatt is himself working on. His teaching commitment is unusual for a manager of his calibre; most fund managers stop teaching once their personal asset base reaches a certain scale. Greenblatt's view, stated in multiple interviews, is that the teaching itself sharpens his framework because the questions students raise force him to re-examine assumptions he might otherwise leave unchallenged. The principle is closer to Charlie Munger's Latticework of Mental Models doctrine than to a narrow methodological commitment: the act of articulating a framework to others is itself the framework's most powerful internal stress test.

Famous picks

Documented Gotham Capital and Gotham Asset Management positions and special-situation case studies from Greenblatt's published writing and interviews.

Marriott / Host Marriott spin-off (1993)

One of the canonical Greenblatt special-situation trades, documented in You Can Be a Stock Market Genius. Marriott Corporation split into Marriott International (the management business) and Host Marriott (the real-estate-holding business saddled with debt). Institutional sellers dumped the Host Marriott shares because they were too small and too indebted to fit existing mandates, creating a sub-NAV pricing window that Greenblatt exploited.

Sears / Sears Roebuck spin-offs (1990s)

Greenblatt documented the multi-step Sears restructuring as another spin-off case study. The carved-out Allstate Insurance and Dean Witter pieces traded below intrinsic value during the months immediately following separation because the parent's institutional holder base did not have mandates to hold the new entities.

Wells Fargo (1990s vintage)

Greenblatt has cited Wells Fargo as a long-running Gotham position from the early 1990s, when the bank was over-discounted because of California real-estate exposure. The position was held through the recovery and is referenced in his published interviews as an example of fundamental conviction surviving a multi-year drawdown.

The Magic Formula cohort (2005 onward)

Greenblatt's most visible post-2005 picks are not individual names but the rolling Magic Formula cohort published on his magicformulainvesting.com website. The cohort refreshes regularly and serves as the public-facing operational implementation of the methodology documented in The Little Book.

Strayer Education (2000s)

Documented in Greenblatt interviews from the 2000s as a stalwart fast-grower position in for-profit education before the sector's regulatory deterioration. The position was a multi-bagger before the policy environment shifted and the entire sector derated.

Apple (Gotham Asset Management long book, 2010s)

Apple has been a documented Gotham Asset Management long position since the iPhone era. The position fits the Magic Formula at multiple snapshots through the 2010s: top-decile return on capital combined with mid-decile earnings yield, the precise pattern the formula is designed to identify.

Microsoft (Gotham Asset Management long book, 2010s onward)

Another long-term Gotham holding that has appeared on the Magic Formula screens repeatedly. The cloud-services pivot under Satya Nadella improved Microsoft's incremental return on capital, which lifted it into the highest formula ranks despite the rising absolute share price.

Charter Communications (post-bankruptcy)

Documented in Greenblatt's later interviews as a post-bankruptcy emergence trade. Charter emerged with a clean balance sheet and a strong underlying cable franchise, and the post-emergence equity traded below intrinsic value as forced sellers cleared.

How invest-like scores the Greenblatt framework

invest-like applies a Greenblatt-Fit Score using EBIT-based return on capital (with the original Greenblatt denominator of net working capital plus net fixed assets) and EBIT-based earnings yield (EBIT over enterprise value). Stocks are summed-rank-ordered across the full universe and graded A+ through D. The deal-breakers list (financials and utilities are excluded because of capital-structure ambiguity, and stocks with negative EBIT are filtered) follows the original published methodology. Read the live cohort at /fit/greenblatt/ and the methodology at /methodology/.

Famous quotes

Fifteen widely cited quotes attributed to Greenblatt's published canon and recorded interviews.

Choose stocks that the market hates. They tend to be the ones you can buy cheaply.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Buying good businesses at bargain prices is the secret to making lots of money.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Buying a share of stock means you are buying a piece of a business.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005), Chapter 1

If you just stick to buying good companies (ones that have a high return on capital) and to buying those companies only at bargain prices (at prices that give you a high earnings yield), you can end up systematically buying many of the good companies that crazy Mr. Market has decided to literally give away.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong, not taking the loss, that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

Spin-offs are an extraordinarily fertile area to find compelling investment opportunities.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

The strategy doesn't work all the time. In fact, it can sometimes underperform the market for several years in a row. That's actually one of the major reasons it continues to work over the long term.

The Little Book Still Beats the Market (2010 update)

Twenty-eight out of every thirty-six months, the Magic Formula beats the market. But twelve months at a stretch, even three years at a stretch, it can underperform.

Interview, Forbes (circa 2006)

Investing is about studying and analysing businesses, not about timing the stock market.

Attributed in The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

If you do good valuation work and you're right, Mr Market will pay you back. But the timing is not yours to choose.

Interview, Columbia Business School Special Situations class

If you have time to invest properly, then investing in a portfolio of cheap, good companies should produce above-average returns over the long term.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

The trick is finding situations where the odds are tilted in your favour.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

Look at things from the perspective of a business owner. That's how you'll separate good investments from bad ones.

Attributed, recurring across Greenblatt's published interviews

There is no such thing as a good investment at any price.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

It's much easier to make money in stocks when you don't have to think about doing it every day.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Books by Joel Greenblatt

Greenblatt's complete published canon. Note that The Little Book and The Little Book Still are often shelved as a single title in two editions.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius

1997

Greenblatt's first book, primarily about special-situation investing: spin-offs, recapitalisations, restructurings, mergers, bankruptcies, and other corporate events that produce structurally underfollowed pricing dislocations. More advanced than The Little Book; presumed audience is the active analyst rather than the lay reader.

ISBN 978-0684840079

The Little Book That Beats the Market

2005

Greenblatt's most famous book and the published source of the Magic Formula. Written for a popular audience in deliberately accessible prose (the foreword tells the reader's son to read it aloud to test for comprehension). The 1988 to 2004 backtest reported in the appendix has been the most cited single piece of value-investing performance data of the past twenty years.

ISBN 978-0470624159 (Wiley, 2010 updated edition)

The Little Book Still Beats the Market

2010, second edition with updated backtest

A revised edition of The Little Book with a fresh foreword, updated through 2009 data, and additional commentary on the 2008 to 2009 drawdown and the behavioural challenge of running the formula in practice. Sometimes shelved as a separate book; often bundled with the original.

ISBN 978-0470624159

The Big Secret for the Small Investor

2011

Greenblatt's broader argument that retail investors should hold a value-weighted (rather than market-cap-weighted) index. Develops the case that the cap-weighted S&P 500 systematically overweights expensive names; a value-weighted equivalent provides a cleaner exposure to the long-run equity premium.

ISBN 978-0385525077

Common Sense, The Investor's Guide to Equality, Opportunity, and Growth

2020

Greenblatt's most recent book. Extends his investment-and-policy thinking into broader questions about how capital markets interact with educational and social systems. Less methodologically focused than the earlier books; more reflective.

ISBN 978-1501197956

Common misconceptions

Misconception: The Magic Formula is a get-rich-quick system.

Correction. Greenblatt is explicit that the formula's edge survives precisely because most retail users abandon it during the inevitable two-to-three-year underperformance windows. The published 17.4 percent CAGR was a seventeen-year backtest, not a short-cycle promise. The 2010 update edition adds a dedicated chapter on the psychological discipline required to actually realise the published numbers.

Misconception: The Magic Formula no longer works post-publication.

Correction. Subsequent academic and practitioner out-of-sample tests through the 2000s and 2010s have generally found the formula's edge has thinned but not disappeared, with the 2010 to 2019 window weaker than 2000 to 2009. The thinning is exactly what one would expect from a published methodology whose followers compete to buy the same stocks. The formula's residual edge is most defensible when applied to broader universes (mid- and small-caps in particular) or with periodic refinements to the underlying ratios.

Misconception: Gotham Capital is the same as Gotham Asset Management.

Correction. Gotham Capital was Greenblatt's original hedge fund, founded 1985 with Robert Goldstein, which returned outside capital in 1994. Gotham Asset Management is a successor firm that runs a different set of strategies (including long-short mutual funds applying the Magic Formula framework) for outside investors. The compound 40 percent annualised returns Greenblatt is famous for refer specifically to the 1985 to 1994 Gotham Capital window.

Misconception: Greenblatt is purely a quantitative investor.

Correction. The Magic Formula is mechanical, but Greenblatt's earlier and arguably more profitable work in special situations is intensively qualitative: reading 10-K disclosures of spin-off structures, modelling post-emergence balance sheets, talking to advisers involved in restructurings. The full Greenblatt framework includes both the mechanical Magic Formula for size-appropriate liquid universes and discretionary special-situation work for less efficient corners of the market.

Misconception: The Magic Formula works for any portfolio size.

Correction. It works best for portfolios small enough to take meaningful positions in the smaller stocks the formula often surfaces. Institutional implementations have to filter the universe to liquid large-caps, which materially weakens the published results. Greenblatt himself acknowledges the size-scalability constraint in the 2010 edition and in subsequent interviews.

Today's top stocks passing the Greenblatt framework

invest-like grades 21,000+ stocks across 68 countries (roughly half listed outside the US, spanning 33 exchanges) against the Greenblatt-Fit framework daily. The live top-ten cohort, ranked by combined return on capital and earnings yield, lives at /fit/greenblatt/. The page refreshes daily as fundamentals update.

Frequently asked questions

What is Joel Greenblatt known for?

Greenblatt is known for founding Gotham Capital, which compounded at roughly 40 percent annually from 1985 to 1994, for publishing the Magic Formula in The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005), and for teaching the Special Situations Investing class at Columbia Business School since 1996.

What is the Magic Formula?

A mechanical stock-ranking rule introduced in The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005). Rank the universe by return on capital and earnings yield, sum the two ranks per stock, buy the top twenty to thirty names, rebalance annually. The original 1988 to 2004 backtest reported 17.4 percent CAGR versus the S&P 500's 12.4 percent.

Does the Magic Formula still work?

Academic out-of-sample tests through the 2000s and 2010s have found the formula's edge has thinned compared to the original 1988 to 2004 window but remains positive when applied to broader universes including small- and mid-caps. Greenblatt himself acknowledges the thinning in the 2010 update edition and frames it as the natural consequence of the methodology being widely published.

What is the difference between The Little Book and You Can Be a Stock Market Genius?

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005) is a popular-audience introduction to the mechanical Magic Formula. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997) is a more advanced book about special-situation investing (spin-offs, recapitalisations, restructurings) and is the better source for understanding Greenblatt's earlier discretionary work at Gotham Capital.

How did Joel Greenblatt make his money?

Greenblatt founded Gotham Capital in 1985 with Robert Goldstein. The fund compounded at roughly 40 percent annually before fees from 1985 to 1994, after which Greenblatt returned outside capital and continued investing his own money. Subsequent involvement at Gotham Asset Management has been at a much larger scale with public mutual-fund products.

Why did Gotham Capital return its outside capital?

Greenblatt has stated in interviews that the fund's asset base had grown to the point where the special-situation opportunities he was best at exploiting were no longer large enough to move the needle. Returning capital allowed him to continue running the strategy at a more capital-efficient size and freed time for teaching and writing.

How does invest-like score the Greenblatt framework?

invest-like applies a Greenblatt-Fit Score using EBIT-based return on capital (with the original Greenblatt denominator of net working capital plus net fixed assets) and EBIT-based earnings yield (operating earnings divided by enterprise value). Stocks are summed-rank-ordered across the full universe and graded A+ through D. The live cohort is at /fit/greenblatt/ and the methodology at /methodology/.

How old is Joel Greenblatt?

Greenblatt was born on 13 December 1957 in Great Neck, New York. As of 2026 he is in his late sixties and continues to teach the Special Situations Investing class at Columbia Business School alongside his work at Gotham Asset Management.

Where can I find Greenblatt's Magic Formula stocks?

Greenblatt operates the magicformulainvesting.com website which surfaces the rolling cohort of stocks that pass the formula at any given time. invest-like also surfaces the equivalent cohort at /fit/greenblatt/, applying the same return-on-capital and earnings-yield ranking with the platform's own data layer.

Warren Buffett

Read the wiki

Benjamin Graham

Read the wiki

Philip Fisher

Read the wiki

Peter Lynch

Read the wiki

Charlie Munger

Read the wiki

Terry Smith

Read the wiki

Methodology

Pillar weights and deal-breakers

Working papers

DOI-anchored methodology

Track record

Live 30-stock model portfolio

Editorial and educational only. Quotes and picks are drawn from primary sources (You Can Be a Stock Market Genius 1997, The Little Book That Beats the Market 2005 and 2010 editions, The Big Secret for the Small Investor 2011, Common Sense 2020) and from Greenblatt's recorded public interviews. invest-like has no commercial relationship with Gotham Capital, Gotham Asset Management, Joel Greenblatt, or any company mentioned. Nothing on this page constitutes investment advice. Past performance does not predict future results.

Investor wiki

Joel Greenblatt

Born 1957, American, founder of Gotham Capital, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School

Buy good businesses at cheap prices, by a strict and mechanical rule. The architect of the Magic Formula and one of the most successful special-situations investors of the past four decades.

Biography

Investment philosophy in seven principles

1. The Magic Formula

2. Return on capital matters more than growth

3. Earnings yield as the price discipline

4. Mechanical rebalancing beats discretion

5. Spin-offs, recapitalisations, and special situations

6. Be willing to look stupid for years

7. Teach the next generation

Famous picks

Documented Gotham Capital and Gotham Asset Management positions and special-situation case studies from Greenblatt's published writing and interviews.

Marriott / Host Marriott spin-off (1993)

Sears / Sears Roebuck spin-offs (1990s)

Wells Fargo (1990s vintage)

The Magic Formula cohort (2005 onward)

Strayer Education (2000s)

Apple (Gotham Asset Management long book, 2010s)

Microsoft (Gotham Asset Management long book, 2010s onward)

Charter Communications (post-bankruptcy)

How invest-like scores the Greenblatt framework

Famous quotes

Fifteen widely cited quotes attributed to Greenblatt's published canon and recorded interviews.

Choose stocks that the market hates. They tend to be the ones you can buy cheaply.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Buying good businesses at bargain prices is the secret to making lots of money.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Buying a share of stock means you are buying a piece of a business.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005), Chapter 1

If you just stick to buying good companies (ones that have a high return on capital) and to buying those companies only at bargain prices (at prices that give you a high earnings yield), you can end up systematically buying many of the good companies that crazy Mr. Market has decided to literally give away.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

A loss never bothers me after I take it. I forget it overnight. But being wrong, not taking the loss, that is what does damage to the pocketbook and to the soul.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

Spin-offs are an extraordinarily fertile area to find compelling investment opportunities.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

The strategy doesn't work all the time. In fact, it can sometimes underperform the market for several years in a row. That's actually one of the major reasons it continues to work over the long term.

The Little Book Still Beats the Market (2010 update)

Twenty-eight out of every thirty-six months, the Magic Formula beats the market. But twelve months at a stretch, even three years at a stretch, it can underperform.

Interview, Forbes (circa 2006)

Investing is about studying and analysing businesses, not about timing the stock market.

Attributed in The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

If you do good valuation work and you're right, Mr Market will pay you back. But the timing is not yours to choose.

Interview, Columbia Business School Special Situations class

If you have time to invest properly, then investing in a portfolio of cheap, good companies should produce above-average returns over the long term.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

The trick is finding situations where the odds are tilted in your favour.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius (1997)

Look at things from the perspective of a business owner. That's how you'll separate good investments from bad ones.

Attributed, recurring across Greenblatt's published interviews

There is no such thing as a good investment at any price.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

It's much easier to make money in stocks when you don't have to think about doing it every day.

The Little Book That Beats the Market (2005)

Books by Joel Greenblatt

Greenblatt's complete published canon. Note that The Little Book and The Little Book Still are often shelved as a single title in two editions.

You Can Be a Stock Market Genius

1997

ISBN 978-0684840079

The Little Book That Beats the Market

2005

ISBN 978-0470624159 (Wiley, 2010 updated edition)

The Little Book Still Beats the Market

2010, second edition with updated backtest

ISBN 978-0470624159

The Big Secret for the Small Investor

2011

ISBN 978-0385525077

Common Sense, The Investor's Guide to Equality, Opportunity, and Growth

2020

ISBN 978-1501197956

Common misconceptions

Misconception: The Magic Formula is a get-rich-quick system.

Misconception: The Magic Formula no longer works post-publication.

Misconception: Gotham Capital is the same as Gotham Asset Management.

Misconception: Greenblatt is purely a quantitative investor.

Misconception: The Magic Formula works for any portfolio size.

Today's top stocks passing the Greenblatt framework

Frequently asked questions

What is Joel Greenblatt known for?

What is the Magic Formula?

Does the Magic Formula still work?

What is the difference between The Little Book and You Can Be a Stock Market Genius?

How did Joel Greenblatt make his money?

Why did Gotham Capital return its outside capital?

How does invest-like score the Greenblatt framework?

invest-like applies a Greenblatt-Fit Score using EBIT-based return on capital (with the original Greenblatt denominator of net working capital plus net fixed assets) and EBIT-based earnings yield (operating earnings divided by enterprise value). Stocks are summed-rank-ordered across the full universe and graded A+ through D. The live cohort is at /fit/greenblatt/ and the methodology at /methodology/.

How old is Joel Greenblatt?

Where can I find Greenblatt's Magic Formula stocks?

Warren Buffett

Read the wiki

Benjamin Graham

Read the wiki

Philip Fisher

Read the wiki

Peter Lynch

Read the wiki

Charlie Munger

Read the wiki

Terry Smith

Read the wiki

Methodology

Pillar weights and deal-breakers

Working papers

DOI-anchored methodology

Track record

Live 30-stock model portfolio

Joel Greenblatt

Biography

Investment philosophy in seven principles

1. The Magic Formula

2. Return on capital matters more than growth

3. Earnings yield as the price discipline

4. Mechanical rebalancing beats discretion

5. Spin-offs, recapitalisations, and special situations

6. Be willing to look stupid for years

7. Teach the next generation

Famous picks

How invest-like scores the Greenblatt framework

Famous quotes

Books by Joel Greenblatt

Common misconceptions

Today's top stocks passing the Greenblatt framework

Frequently asked questions

Related

Joel Greenblatt

Biography

Investment philosophy in seven principles

1. The Magic Formula

2. Return on capital matters more than growth

3. Earnings yield as the price discipline

4. Mechanical rebalancing beats discretion

5. Spin-offs, recapitalisations, and special situations

6. Be willing to look stupid for years

7. Teach the next generation

Famous picks

How invest-like scores the Greenblatt framework

Famous quotes

Books by Joel Greenblatt

Common misconceptions

Today's top stocks passing the Greenblatt framework

Frequently asked questions

Related