Review
“…a great how-to guide for both beginning and experienced value investors…a terrific addition on this time-tested methodology.” — Eric T. McKissack, Vice Chairman, Ariel Capital Management/Ariel Mutual Funds”practical, insightful, and a great roadmap to not only value investing but how to make money in the stock market.” — Joel Greenblatt, Managing Partner, Gotham Capital
How to determine what stocks are really worth and buy the best at a disc…
Buy The 5 Keys to Value Investing at Amazon
I got my copy of “The Five Keys to Value Investing” as a graduation gift from my dad who is a longtime professional equities investor. He thought this book would be a good way for me to prep before I start my career on Wall Street. I was not disappointed. The Five Keys is a very good summary of what I learned in business school and much, much more. The author draws heavily from his own professional experiences as a disciple of one legendary value investor and couples it with the value investment styles of other great investors like Buffett and Graham. The experience that the reader is drawn into is very worthwhile; but what makes this book very special is the framework. I have read several investment books over the years, but none like this one. Putting thousands of lessons and teachings of prominent value investors into a solid frame of mind is clearly the draw. In addition, reading along as the author analyzes and dissects companies and few special situations add gravitas to the body of work. The clarity in the concepts and the “conversation-like” tone was particularly attractive to me. In sum, this is a very coherent, practical book on the principles of value investing despite the fact that it is not too objective — considering the authors’ strong unapologetic bias towards value investing.
This is a wonderful book on the principles of value investing. The author does a fantastic job putting together (in a very understandable way) some of the most important tenets that every value investor should uphold. The book starts with “The Mind of the Value Investor” – which I believe to be the book’s most important chapter. Here, Mr. Jean-Jacques describes what many successful practitioners believe to be the most critical attribute to becoming a good investor… and that is emotional intelligence. After examining the book a great detail (my copy is dog-eared, highlighted and well marked up), I would consider the following sections to be most important:
— All of Chapter 1
— Business Quality Red Flags (in Chapter 2)
— Assessing Value: Tools to Consider (in Chapter 3)
— All of Chapter 4
— Identifying the Opportunity (in Chapter 6)
— Appendices A, C and E
What I did not like about the book was the length. While it what not as lengthy as some books of this type might be, “The Five Keys to Value Investing” should have been much more concise in the breadth of topics and concepts covered. Also, the examples were good but were too many in number while using analytical concepts that might be a bit too philosophical for non-professional value investors, like me. However, on a lighter point, the analogy between the game of golf and value investing in Chapter 6 was very insightful and much appreciated (it was the only light moment in the entire book!!)
Look, this book is an absolute buy. No question about that. Readers just have to be a bit skilled in order the get the most out of this very informative and thorough work.