Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits

In today's world of finance and the stock market, all the depressing news can cause people who don't have the stomach or wherewithall to weather all the bad news to do drastic things, including buying the "fix all" type books like this one. This particular book is somewhat of a snake-oil description of how to succeed in the market without really trying! There are no such things as "secret hiding places of stock market profits." If people really want to understand how the market works, and what the psychology of the market is all about, they should start by reading the books written by Jesse Livermore, Peter Lynch, Benjamin Graham, et.al. (all of which are available at the store). For every winner in the market, there are literally thousands of people who are not successful because they do not understand the mechanics of economics and exactly what drives the market. Learn those two principles and you will maybe not be as successful as you would like, but you will certainly not lose all your stash! Losing money teaches you in a hurry how not to lose it. Most people who lose everything - or most of it - should have gone to a casino; the losing wouldn't have been as painful after being lubricated with all the free drinks and food. This book will do nothing for you at all; what it WILL do is enrichen the cauffers of the person who wrote it. Many people believe that you stand a better chance of making money at a casino than you do by investing in the stock market. That would be true if you learned as much about the card games as you should learn about investing before you do it. Education is a powerful tool; whether it be games of chance or investing in the stock market, your chances of being successful at either are immensly improved by educating yourself. Luck is where skill and preparedness come together. The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)The Interpretation of Financial StatementsLearn to Earn: A Beginner's Guide to the Basics of Investing and Business

Even though I like other publications from Joel Greenblatt, I didn't find this book to be a compelling read. Maybe some of the concepts were not very interesting or I just didn't understand them as well. If you are looking for investing alternatives this book has some good info, however, it just didn't hold my interest very well.

This book was well recommended by investors, and so I purchased it, but was eventually disappointed. The ideas are a bit basic / common sense if you work in the industry; for example, spin-offs on average outperform as is common knowledge, but what about the counter-examples, such as the Verizon spin-offs which went bankrupt. Also, when going through his thought process on why he purchased a stock, his arguments had holes in them (sounded too much like useless sell-side research arguments). I was rather disappointed; instead of this, pick up One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch or Essays of Warren Buffett by Cunningham.

Show the delusional thinking and oxymorons of almost everyone in the world. Almost anyone can get lucky and become a millionare. So stupid but so true. We are born into it and we are old and die with it. Self actualization really happens at birth.

As someone who has read dozens of investing books over the past 25 years, this one will not stay on my shelf. The best advise he provides is to study the teachings of Benjamin Graham, something that is common knowledge to nearly every investor.

One way to judge the popularity of a book is by the price it commands on the used market. If you must read it, the store currently has numerous used copies available for under 4 bucks.

In a world filled with mutual fund managers who make millions for underperforming the S&P over the duration of their careers, students of investing should always ask to see a teacher's audited investment results before listening to a word.
Joel Greenblatt produced 50%+ annual returns over ten years. To put this superlative performance in context, it is better than Warren Buffet's. Quite simply: Greenblatt is an investing master and his teachings are worthy of special consideration.
The pleasure of this book is its simplicity. The kind of rigorous homework Greenblatt suggests is not easy to do in practice, but this is a key reason why it can be such fruitful work to do. Greenblatt's logic is driven by simple, fundamental and powerful truths: a) investing only in your best few ideas tends to lead to a higher quality portfolio, b) doing work where others are not contributes to an investment edge and c) there is statistical evidence to show that value investing and special situations outperform the broader market over time.
The book is filled with humor, common sense and a lot of investing wisdom. Greenblatt has opened the door, students must walk through it themselves...

Just another Fundamental Analysis book with sprinkled with motivational anecdotes. I am not going to say it was a bad book, but it certainly won't make you a Stock Market Genius. If this 'CAN', then so many other books can as well as they are effectively the same.

The book was actually ok. I think the promise of it all and the talk leading up to it we're disappointing. In fact, the author himself states that the secret is that "there are no secrets", the hidden gems "are everywhere". Uh, duh. That's why we bought your book. Oh well, another one bites the dust.

Maybe I'm being to harsh, but I've read enough financial books that my tolerance for them is waning.

I bought this because a couple of hedge fund managers in an article picked it as their best stock market book. I can only conclude that they must be personal friends of the author. The book is extremely lightweight stating what is completely obvious and lacking any real, useful insight. As other reviews have pointed out, the examples are from twenty years ago and can only be interesting to someone looking back at market history, not currently investing. I could continue at some length in this vein, but I trust the reader gets the point. Skip this book, it is of no use in today's market.

With this his first book, superstar investor Joel Greenblatt tried to bring the process that gave him his early success to the general public. Even though the author is broad within his niche - special situations - the area in itself is specialized and also highly labor intensive making the venture doomed to failure. Instead the book became an instant classic among hedge fund managers.

The basic premise of the book is that it pays off to search for areas where there is a high probability of finding undervalued equities. In contrasts to many other ventures, when it comes to investments you have the possibility to choose your battles and even your playing fields. No one will punish you for not doing something, only for doing stupid things. Therefore you can specialize in a specific type of investing. If there are no immediate opportunities in the chosen area you can always keep money in cash. So how do you find corners of the market where the competition is lower? The underlying theme in Greenblatt's hunt is change, in the form of spin-off's, mergers, restructurings, rights offerings, liquidations, asset sales, distributions etc. "Essentially, it all boils down to a simple two step process. First identify where you think the treasure [...] lies. Secondly, after you've identified the spot (preferably marked by a big red X), then, and only then, start digging. No sense (and no fun) digging up the whole neighborhood".

The author dedicates chapters to several types of special situations such as merger securities, corporate restructurings and others. Spin-offs for example, have had a massive outperformance over the three years that follows the separation. The spun-off company's shares is often sold regardless their merits either as the original investor was interested in the mother company in the first place or because the new company is too small. Combined with the fact that the management gets a real boost from being liberated from the old corporate overhead, this opens up for outsized returns. However, the investor should wait for the selling to ebb out before making his purchases. Which spin-offs offer the best value? Greenblatt advices to let insider buying be the judge of which spin-off's to invest in.

There will in general be very little possible downside to a stock coming out of bankruptcy. After a bankruptcy the old equity holders will be wiped out and the old debt will have been turned to a combination of new debt and new equity. Hence the equity holders are the old bondholders. As they in most of the cases are fixed income investors the shares will be sold regardless of their merits which will make them cheap. Corporate information from the bankruptcy proceedings is available, most investors will be traumatized from previous ownership and the sell side doesn't want to touch the stock. The author further advises to seek the good businesses that can deleverage.

There are only a very few books written on special situations investing making the book relatively unique. Despite the slightly esoteric area there is no doubt that Greenblatt is a devoted value investor seeking margins of safety, seeing risk as "permanent loss of capital" etc. He argues for deep research and focusing on the best ideas instead of broad diversification. Over time the portfolio will have many positions and it will have diversified over time instead of at any given time. "It's better to do a lot of work on one idea than to do some work on a lot of ideas". The book is written in a breezy easy-going style of writing that might fool you into doubting the quality of its advice. This would be a serious mistake. The logic is explained and there are some examples but - to bring up a negative - practical details are in rather short supply.

To succeed is probably two parts being at the right place at the right time and only one part perseverance, skill and intelligence. However, to navigate to the right place at the right time is a rare and underappreciated competence in itself.

This is a review by investingbythebooks.com

Bad book. Title is misleading. It has one approach to investing and that is finding special company "splits" and trying trying to time your stock investments to these splits. You see no return on your money for a year or so. Not much for practical uses.

Originally published in 1997, "You Can Be A Stock Market Genius" remains popular today and is enthusiastically endorsed in a number of reviews on the internet. The author, Joel Greenblatt, ran hedge fund Gotham Capital racking up a 50% average annual return over a 10 year period spanning the mid 80's to the mid 90's. "You Can Be A Stock Market Genius" reveals how he did it and suggests that a motivated individual could do it too, even if he wasn't all that smart. Mr. Greenblatt has since acknowledged in subsequent books that these methods require more work than the average individual investor can muster. His two subsequent books "The Little Book That Beats the Market" and "The Big Secret for the Small Investor" suggest stock screening methods that outperform the market without much effort from the individual.

I was enthralled with the book when I first read it in 1998 and have 14 years of experience since then implementing some of the strategies. I'll tell you my own experience later but first let me summarize the chief ideas in the book. First, when a small individual investor goes up against professional portfolio managers, it's no contest. The professional portfolio manager doesn't have a chance. The intelligent and competent professional's performance is strangled by the billions of dollars he has to invest. Liquidity demands limit him to choosing among the largest and most followed stocks. The individual, by contrast, has a universe of 10,000+ stocks to choose from including many smaller companies that are inefficiently priced. Mr. Greenblatt points you in the book to the microcap space to look for mispriced securities.

He goes further than that, however, pointing you to specific situations where microcaps are especially likely to be undervalued. In particular, there are certain situations where securities are dumped into the brokerage accounts of investors who didn't buy them and don't really want them. This can result in indiscriminate selling and a temporarily depressed stock price. A large company spinning off a smaller subsidiary to its stockholders is his favorite example. The spinoff security just shows up in brokerage accounts all over the world at the same time. Investors didn't buy the security, they likely know little about the company, and in some cases may not even be allowed to own it. A large-cap mutual fund, for example, may receive a microcap spinoff that their charter forbids them to own. The value of the spinoff compared to the value of their investment in the parent may be small so they're motivated to sell it without even investigating its fair value. Company management doesn't want to promote the new spinoff company until after their stock options are priced. At the same time investors are selling indiscriminately, therefore, there's also a dearth of information available for prospective buyers.

A second special situation is companies emerging from bankruptcy. Many debts are reduced in bankruptcy and some of the debt is replaced by issuing new shares to the former creditors. These new shareholders are in the business of loaning money and not owning equities so when the equity securities are issued to them they may want to sell perhaps indiscriminately. A third special situation arises from company buy-outs. In merger agreements, warrants or bonds or other securities are sometimes issued to sweeten an offer. If you own shares in some large company that gets bought out, for example, you might receive $90 a share in cash and some 5-year warrants to buy additional shares of the acquiring company. The tradeable warrants may be worth only a few dollars. Many investors will just dump the relatively low-value warrants indiscriminately. Mr. Greenblatt covers a number of other special situations including divestures and recapitilizations and discusses the use of options and LEAPS to provide leverage.

The book is full of specific examples of these situations from Mr. Greenblatt's Gotham Capital days. He includes his thinking that went into his decision to buy and later the decision to sell. Mr. Greenblatt believes in personal motivation. He likes to see generous option packages to incentivize the management team of a new spinoff, for example. The very best situations arise when Wall Street doesn't want the new security but the management or major owners do. He cites specific examples involving spinoffs that Wall Street dumped but insiders (Malone and Hilton) wanted that became big winners.

The book is dated in one respect. The method that Mr. Greenblatt suggest to find these special situations is to read a lot. Articles in the Wall Street Journal or other publications pointed him to these situations while at Gotham Capital. There are other ways today that are easier although reading a lot is still a good idea for any investor. A search of SEC filings for form 10's will bring up a list of recent and upcoming spinoffs for example. There are free websites that maintain such a list as well. Divestures can be found with a Google search. I use the term "definitive agreement to sell" in the search and have results e-mailed to me daily.

I've had great success implementing two of Mr. Greenblatt's methods. A large company spinning off a micro-cap happens a few times a year and almost always results in an undervalued security. Let it trade for at least two weeks before buying as prices nearly always fall initially. Divestures often uncover a successful and undervalued remaining company just as Mr. Greenblatt explains in the book. I've made a lot of money on these situations over the years. Recapitalizations seem to be very rare these days, and I've never invested in such a situation. I have come across an occasional merger security but never invested in one. Mr. Greenblatt acknowledges in the book that the bankruptcy emergence situations didn't seem to be as profitable as they once were. The problem, he explains, is that hedge fund managers now buy up the debt before the company emerges from bankruptcy. The issued equity doesn't go to a bank but rather to a sophisticated hedge fund that knows what it's worth. I've invested in a few bankruptcy emergence situations with pretty mixed results.

I heartily recommend the book. It's both an interesting and humorous read while providing very valuable ideas and specific advice on what to look for in special situations.

Great book, one of my favorites for how simply its written but how effective it's ideas are. I find a lot of market books are a waste of time by being rehashed material. This one is different if you haven't read about special situations which is a great place to look.

This book preceded "The Big Secret for the Small Investor" and, in the introduction to that, he writes that some people found the advice hard to follow. I guess it's just me but this one was a better read and more enlightening. Greenblatt, if you don't know who he is, had Buffett-like returns for many years. When I say Buffett-like, by the way, I mean early-Buffett like, more akin to what he earned in his partnerships than the mere 20% a year compounded since 1965 through Berkshire.

Anyway, I read this one several years ago and thought it was very good. Greenblatt's value-investing approach and his explanation of how he made money investing in spinoffs were very interesting. My only complaint - and I guess the follow-up book is better in this regard - is that it is light on details of how a retail investor can follow his strategies. The style and substance of this book are, other than that, great.

Joel Greenblatt is by far one of the most successful value investors this country has ever seen. In this book, he shows readers how he does it. He invests in places where other investors do not want to go. Some of the places include spinoffs, risk arbitrage, bankruptcy, restructuring, recapitalizations, LEAPS, and warrants. Because these special situations are complicated, many traditional money managers ignore them and this creates inefficiencies in the market that investors can exploit.

I like how at the beginning of this book, he describes to readers that it is possible to beat the smart money on Wall Street. These big money managers have certain challenges that individual investors do not have. For example, funds managing billions of dollars are unlikely to invest in small-cap companies. They simply manage too much money. Individual investors do not have this restriction. I highly recommend this book and his other book, The Little Book That Beats the Market (Little Books. Big Profits).

- Mariusz Skonieczny, author of Why Are We So Clueless about the Stock Market? Learn how to invest your money, how to pick stocks, and how to make money in the stock market

Don't make my mistake. I avoided this book because of its title which makes it seem cheap and superficial. I finally decided to give it a try and I'm very glad that I did. Greenblatt is funny, direct, and easy to understand. His advice is practical that can be put to use immediately by investors at all levels. He actually "spoon feeds" a lot of this info to the reader which is rare. Of course no how-to book can completely do this and effort and time by the reader is absolutely required and essential to fully take advantage of this book from a financial standpoint. As Greenblatt points out this is good otherwise if investing were easy then there would be too many people competing with you and the profits would disappear.

At the end of the book he also lists many other sources (newspapers, magazines, book, publications) where the reader can gain further knowledge. Even if you do not benefit financially from Geenblatt's book, it is still worth reading due to it entertainment value. It is delightful. From a practical standpoint this book is far better than The Little Book That Beats the Market also by the same author.

The following two quotes always jumped into my mind when I was reading this book:- "No pain no gain" and "Talent is spelt W-O-R-K".

Back to the book. It's a real page turner with plenty of success stories that explained the phenomenal return of the fund managed by the author, a genuine value investing practitioner, who began the book with some investment basics like do your homework and never listen to tips, then followed by intensive description of spinoffs, partial spinsoffs, rights offerings, risk arbitrage, mergers, bankruptcy, restructuring, and various derivatives.

Nothwithstanding the author's humour, this book is exceptionally insightful. I love the quick summaries for individual tools much because they are so concise and helpful. In case you are committed to do your homework (several weeks to study for just one single opportunity), and you are patient enough to invest only on around five opportunities in a year, this book is a must buy!

p.s. Below please find some summaries for your quick reference:-

For spinoff
1. Spinoffs, in general, beat the market.
2. Picking your spots within the spinoff universe for even better result.
3. Certain characteristics point to an exceptional opportunities:
- Insitutions dont want it and not because of investment merits
- Insiders want it
- A previously hidden investment opportunity uncovered by it
4. Locate and analyse new spinoff prospects by press and SEC filings
5. Paying attention to "parent" can pay off handsomely
6. Partial spinoffs and rights offerings create unique opportunities.
For risk arbitrage - NO!
For Merger securities (the by-products issued for M&A) - Yes!

This book is for those who cannot resist the idea of wanting to outperform the market averages. For most people, that's dumb idea . . . and indexed mutual funds would be a better choice.

But if you are willing to roll up your sleeves, put on your green eyeshade and look at things differently, Mr. Greenblatt's approach is a very valid one.

If you read only one of Mr. Greenblatt's books about investing (the other one is The Little Book That Beats the Market), read this one. You'll make more money with this one.

You can be a Stock Market Genius has the simplest explanation for special situations investing involving unusual securities that I have seen for the lay person.

For most people, this book will be a lot to chew on. I suggest that you start by simply trying to understand and apply one idea in the book . . . such as finding under priced small spin-off stocks. After you get the handle on that one, go on to another approach that interests you.

I have worked for over three decades helping companies design these new securities that fascinate Mr. Greenblatt so much. From that experience, I'm constantly amazed at how stupidly most corporate finance departments and investment banks pursue these new structures. I suspect that the answer is that the heavy brainpower is saved for more profitable work like M&A.

As a result, you will almost always find a great investment opportunity if you look at unusual securities. I encourage you to begin by spending a half hour getting the background on any unusual transaction you read about.

You can also improve on this book by doing more precise measurements of securities values (if you have the background to do that), but for many severely undervalued securities Mr. Greenblatt's approach of taking guesses about what a reasonable value is will work just fine.

Although the examples are older, these kinds of opportunities still abound in most categories he discusses (stub stocks are the exception). Mr. Greenblatt has a real talent for putting his cases together to make them easier to understand.

Have a ball!

This book may not be that mention-all, answer-all flawless guide, but reading it was a fulfilling joy. It's chapters are well-laid out. They appeared sequential in tackling their issues; and very thorough in explaining how and why choosing a particular line of investment should be evaluated.
However, anyone who is new to corporate investment and/or stock market as a whole, would wish that the writing style of the author is a bit more elementary. The knowledge of certain basic issues were already assumed; and were not explained at all. This is understandably so, because the book was designed for experienced stock-brokers, who are now aspiring to become Wall-Street gurus. So, if you are relatively new in this game ( and do not have previous investment/brokerage experience), reading a more introductory text before going for this one is highly recommended.
On the other hand, if you are already a battle-tested pro, just take a seat. This is as good as it gets! The generous amount of case-studies (and other real-life scenarios) provided in this book will impress even the likes of 'Oracle of Omaha'. No type of situation or strategy was overlooked! Indeed, this book is a phantom of delight. Its chapters did justice to the entire field of corporate investing. And they included important issues like mergers, trade-offs, acquisitions, liquidations, expansions, risk management, bankruptcies, and many others!
But, since elements of luck are integral part of any investment strategy, I would suggest that each aspiring investor make that extra effort, which will compliment his or her hardwork with careful thoughts and projections. No possibility should be ignored! This is because in this precarious terrain, events can suddenly change: leaving even the most accomplished investor running for cover. The unfortunate events of the September 11, 2001 served as an eye-opener for me. I learnt a very big lesson.
In conclusion, the literary dynamics of this book is invaluable. The chapters did embrace a wide range of issues; and I very much appreciate every page of it.

Although the title leaves a little to be desired, and you may want to hide it from friends who think you have a get-rich-quick scheme brewing, this book is actually full of insightful knowledge about special situation investing. These are situations in which the market may misjudge a company's stock price and a smart investor may be able to jump in and take advantage of the temporary mispricing. A few examples include spin-offs, where a company will break off a part of its business as a new company with its own stock, corporate restructuring, merger securities, and companies recovering from bankruptcy. Each chapter covers a different concept and includes a few examples.

The book is written well with lots of humor throughout. A beginner without an adequate background in business may find the topics confusing, but intermediate investors should be able to find some practical knowledge of places to look for mispriced companies. A warning: the ideas do require some homework. Be prepared to read through press releases, financial statements, and other boring pieces that no one else bothers to read to find potential picks. But that's what value investing is about, finding the stocks that no one else bothers to look. Highly recommended.

This is an excellent book introducing investment strategies just slightly off the beaten path. If your interest is in long term mutual fund investing there are better books (though you'll still learn a lot from this book.) But if you are interested in investments that are more diverse - and take more time - such as LEAPS, annuities, or mergers this book is a good starting place.

The author begins by going over the basics of investing - the basics never really change no matter what you're investing in. He then divides the book up by different investments and outlines how they work and how to invest in them. He assumes some knowledge of how these markets work but the writing is clear and understandable.

He cautions that these strategies take more time to invest in and because they aren't the focus of most investors good information can be harder to find. In all, though, this is an excellent book and will be a good addition to anyone's investment library.

1999 Fireside reissue of 1st edition (1997), 299 pages (of which 261 pages form the main body of the book).

Despite the awful title, I really enjoyed `You can be a Stock Market Genius'. Greenblatt laces his (excellent) content with plenty of jokes, which I always think of as a somewhat risky approach: some readers who would otherwise appreciate the content will not like the delivery.

By the time of publication, Greenblatt's investment firm had already achieved 50% compound annual growth for 10 years, so could write his book however he pleased. I like it when people don't need to write books for financial reasons - you get a better look at the author.

Greenblatt's book reminds me strongly of Mohnish Pabrai's `The Dhandho Investor', which I read a few months ago. I don't think one should be particularly surprised, as they both belong in that tiny group of investors who have not just beaten the stock market, but have absolutely smashed it. The following summary points for `You can be a Stock Market Genius' could be used for either book:

1. Concentrate your efforts on areas where bargains are likely to occur ("If you preselect investment areas that put you ahead of the game even before you start ... the most important work is already done.")
2. Limit downside risk ("If you don't lose money, most of the remaining alternatives are good ones.")
3. Load up on only a few best ideas ("...don't screw up a perfectly good stock-market strategy by diversifying your way into mediocre returns.")

The second point, which is the same as the concept of `margin of safety,' works because it - unlike the world of analyst earnings forecasts - acknowledges the severe uncertainty that is reality. I particularly enjoyed Nassim Taleb's `The Black Swan', partly because the world he reveals ties in so well with the `value' approach to investing. Both good and bad large, unpredictable events occur more frequently than we expect. If you organise your investing (and your life) so that you are protected from some of the negative shocks, but left exposed to the positive ones, this is likely to serve you well.

Pabrai focuses on distressed situations (what he calls `high uncertainty, low risk') and Greenblatt likes special situations (spin-offs, merger securities, etc). But the theme is the same: in order to get really good results you've got to be looking in areas other people are not.

Greenblatt is willing to concentrate more than Pabrai, who simply limits his positions to a maximum 10%, to protect himself against error. But these are differences in style rather than substance. They both look for promising situations/ideas and only then do the necessary work. Both profess to avoid use of Excel spreadsheets (In 2006 Greenblatt was asked if he used spreadsheets: "I really don't know how to build spreadsheet models. But the good news is that you don't need spreadsheets to make money.") In other words, they keep it simple.

Before he gets into the specifics of special situation investing, Greenblatt spends a chapter going over `some basics'. This short section of the book is either an excellent primer or reminder of the general requirements of a successful investment strategy - and I commend it to you without reservation.

His book also contains some excellent advice about selling. It is something I have been thinking about a lot recently after reading Pabrai's `The Dhandho Investor' and Katsenelson's `Active Value Investing' - both of which make a strong case for the need to learn to sell in order to get significantly above market returns. The problem with this advice is that selling well is somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible (as various super investors, such as Greenblatt, Marty Whitman, Munger, etc. have said).

Greenblatt's advice is very simple:

"The bargain created or unmasked by the special corporate event - that's what draws me in. The quality and nature of the business - that's what usually determines how long I stay. So trade the bad ones, invest in the good ones."

(You may note that this is essentially the same as Buffett's counsel, who wrote: "when we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favourite holding period is forever.")

I was struck by how often Greenblatt rammed home the importance of incentives throughout his book:

"Insider participation is one of the key areas to look for when picking and choosing between spinoffs - for me, the most important area."

His understanding of the critical importance of incentives is very wise and is surely one of the key reasons for his outstanding success (although I wonder if he still holds stock options in such high regard, now it is clearer that the lack of downside risk can encourage excessively risky behaviour?). Charlie Munger said this about incentives in `The Psychology of Human Misjudgement':

"...almost everyone thinks he fully recognizes how important incentives and disincentives are in changing cognition and behaviour. But this is not often so. I think I've been in the top five percent of my age cohort almost all my adult life in understanding the power of incentives, and yet I've always underestimated that power. Never a year passes but I get some surprise that pushes a little further my appreciation of incentive super-power."

It's also one of the reasons why I like Karen Pryor's book, `Don't Shoot the Dog,' so much. Munger pointed out in the same talk I quoted him from above, that what economists call `incentives' is the same as what psychologists call `reinforcement'. Reading an excellent book on training using positive reinforcement (like Pryor's) is thus extremely useful in improving your understanding and critically, practice of making use of incentives.

So long as you're not the type who objects to a light-hearted approach, you're likely to find Greenblatt's book a lot better than the title suggests. Highly recommended.

Overall a good book. Good "alternative" ways of identifying values. It's worth the used price. The title would be greatly improved by placing quotes around "Genius", because I think the title is supposed to be tongue-in-cheek (maybe I'm wrong). Greenblatt's point throughout the book is that the "genius" is not about divining brilliant insights from widely-held data sources, it's about using less-used data sources for easy insights.

My dad is sort of an intellectual type, and looking at my bookcase during a recent visit, he scoffed when he saw this title. Later, before he left, he asked me what I was reading. When I told him, he said, "what about those get rich quick in the stock market books?" I was embarrassed. Damn you, Joel Greenblatt!

Seriously, though, this is a great read. I've read an extremely wide selection of investment books in the last year or so, and this is the ONLY one that touches on some pretty important concepts, like

Stub Stocks to avoid LBOs
LEAPS strategy to simulate stub stocks (basically, just buying calls...not that revolutionary)
Merger securities
spinoffs
and the best discussion of LBO operations that I've ever read.

I would strongly recommend you buy this book, if you consider yourself an intermediate-or-better investor. I haven't made any money from it yet, but I'm scanning for opportunities even as we speak, and I bet I will find some soon-- thanks entirely to this book.

Cheers!

After reading Greenblatts first book (the little book that ...) I was very interested to read this book. I was not disappointed. Greenblatt's firm Gotham Capital has realized very impressive dubble digit returns for years in a row. Any insight from him on investing should be looked at, in my opinion.

I certainly was not disappointed. This book however isn't all about value investing like his first book, but it's all event-based investing. He still has his value investment philosophy, but Mostly he focuses on spin-offs, divestures, ... Later in the book he also shows how to use LEAPS and warrants to make value investments in stocks he believes will rise. A very insightful case study of investing in LEAPS on Wells Fargo stock is illustrated here, for this example alone I found the book well worth it's money.

In conclusion: If you love stock analysis, go for this book. Advanced or beginning traders will join Greenblatt his insights in analyzing stocks. His track record proves he knows what he's talking about.

This book is a winner. Joel Greenblatt's knowledge of special situation investing comes to light in this witty, engaging and fun guide on how to take advantage of such events as mergers, spinoffs and bankruptcies in unconventional ways typically not exposed to the individual investor. By far the best feature about this book are the case studies Greenblatt presents to us on various occasions. From Greenblatt's experiences profitting from a corporate spinoff, to a bankruptcy, the examples used within this easy to read and fun guide will help the reader better understand the points Greenblatt is making. The witty and down to Earth nature of this book make it a winner, as are the various off-the-beaten track investment methods that have given Greenblatt 50%+ returns at his investment fund, Gotham Capital.

Great book, one of my favorites for how simply its written but how effective it's ideas are. I find a lot of market books are a waste of time by being rehashed material. This one is different if you haven't read about special situations which is a great place to look.

This is an amazingly generous roadmap to lesser-known corners of the securities market. When I first picked it up about 2 years ago, I was terribly disappointed because all the strategies Greenblatt describes require a fair amount of WORK and careful thought --and it was my impression that "Stock Market Genius" entailed effortless wizardry! But the work is contagious and engaging (like digging for buried treasure, as aptly described by Joel Greenblatt).

Despite the book's schleppy and seemingly unrealistic title, Greenblatt is a realistic and honest explainer. In particular, although I've looked for other resources on spinoff investment strategies, everything you really need to know is in this book. The author's style is flippant but endearing, and the reader will get more than his/her money's worth from the ideas described in this book.

Many readers probably never realized that this book gives out some of the best money-making secrets on Wall Street (somebody has to blow the whistle, right?). Everything explained in this book is real and is practiced by a wide array of firms such as investment banks, brokerage houses, and institutional investors. Each year, instituions spent billions of dollars doing exactly the kind of transactions explained in the book. A successful risk arbitrageur in a major investment bank makes about $200-300 millions for the firm, which translates to $2-3 millions in his/her own pocket. Readers may discover that, after all, the good old secrets of Wall Street are simple to understand (Yes, if you can add, subtract and divide, you are qualified to work in 90% of the departments in an investment firm). The language is witty and lively. Case examples make this book extremely charming. However, despite its snappy title, this book fails to appeal the professional crowd. As a professinal myself, I certainly expect the book to skip trivial analogies and expand on technical details. Still, this is a great book for beginners, whether you are a personal investor who is just starting, or someone who wants to get your feet wet on Wall Street. Welcome to the world of greed, capitalism, and lucrative profits!

There are two types of people; people who save money and people who don't. It is really easy if you don't save money (you will suffer when you are old, but now you are fine). If you save money, you are always thinking about where to invest money. You can either put money in bank (where you are barely beating inflation) or you can put money in stock market.

There are two types of people who do "something" in stock market; people who trade and people who invest. If you believe in investing and not trading, you are perpetually worrying about finding "cheap" stocks (if you are buying "expensive" stocks then you should STOP and start trading instead).

It really doesn't matter which category of people you belong to, you really need to read this book as a starting point for your investment education. Joe gives you some investment scenarios to consider for finding "cheap" stocks, but, more importantly he does that in very "average Joe" friendly way. Really easy read.

The paperbook format of this book was published in 1999; as there is no evidence of this being a revised/updated/newer version, the Kindle version has the same material. IMHO, the information is quite dated. That doesn't make this book completely irrelevant, but I would certainly want to get newer books as well (especially those written recently which helps investors in better understanding the financial crisis of 2006). For the beginning investor, look elsewhere.

Have collected a large library of investments books. Most are well worth the effort to read, a few are must reads, but this book is neither of those.
As a matter of fact, I would rate this book, as worthless - written by someone who appears to have never saved or invested.

Joel Greenblatt's book is a masterpiece of investment information. The book provides valuable information for anyone involved in the markets, whether they are an individual investor or a finance professional.

The book details several types of special situation investing and explains the pros and cons of these situations. What was most impressive about this book however, is that manner in which he manages to explain everything he is discussing in such a clear, and engaging fashion. Although I do not usually think of finance books as "page turners" I read this one virtually, in one sitting.