This is the third book written by famous investment guru Joel Greenblatt with his trademark cringeworthy titles (his titles do not accurately reflect the quality of his ideas). The book is short at 147 pages and written in a conversational style with bits of humour which aids in understanding and fast reading. The first half deals with intermediate concepts of value investing such as the discounted cash flow method and mutual funds. Along the way, he explains why professionals may still fail their customers and other familiar value investment ideas. Most of these topics have been beaten to death in other books and can be skipped or skimmed over. Greenblatt then proceeds to indexing. This is where I feel this book shines as this is not a common topic discussed in slightly greater detail in most value investing books and yet so succinctly summarised. Various index strategies are discussed including equally weighted, fundamentally weighted, value-weighted and market-cap-weighted indexes. This is book is highly recommended for indexing strategists. The book is not very numbers-based for those without an accounting bent. However, a quick overview of the topics in the book included at the beginning would have been to helpful to readers.
NLB: Yes
Recommended: Yes; possible to skip the first half
