• The Big Secret for the Small Investor

  • The Shortest Route to Long-Term Investment Success
  • By: Joel Greenblatt
  • Narrated by: Adam Grupper
  • Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (339 ratings)

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The Big Secret for the Small Investor  By  cover art

The Big Secret for the Small Investor

By: Joel Greenblatt
Narrated by: Adam Grupper
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Publisher's summary

When it comes to investing in the stock market, investors have plenty of options:

  • They can do it themselves. Trillions of dollars are invested this way. (Of course, the only problem here is that most people have no idea how to analyze and choose individual stocks. Well, not really the only problem. Most investors have no idea how to construct a stock portfolio, most have no idea when to buy and sell, and most have no idea how much to invest in the first place.)
  • They can give it to professionals to invest. Trillions of dollars are invested this way.(Unfortunately most professionals actually underperform the market averages over time. In fact,it may be even harder to pick good professional managers than it is to pick good individual stocks.)
  • They can invest in traditional index funds. Trillions of dollars are also invested this way.(The problem is that investing this way is seriously flawed--and almost a guarantee of subpar investment returns over time.)
  • They can read The Big Secret for the Small Investor and do something else. Not much is invested this way. Yet....

Let top hedge fund manager, Columbia business school professor, former Fortune 500 chairman and New York Times best-selling author Joel Greenblatt take you on a journey that will reveal the Big Secret for both individual and professional investors. Based on path-breaking new research, find out how anyone can beat the market, the index funds and the experts by following a new approach that relies on the principles of value investing, common sense and quantitative discipline. Along the way, learn where "value" comes from, how markets work, and what really happens on Wall Street. By journey's end, small investors (and even not-so-small investors) will have found their way to some excellent new investment choices.

©2011 Joel Greenblatt (P)2011 Simon & Schuster

What listeners say about The Big Secret for the Small Investor

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Missing something important...

Either I read Greenblatt's books out of order or this entire book missed the main point of why I read it... to learn how to value companies.

The book adeptly described the difficulty of being accurate in valuations of a business and offered some ways of thinking about valuing a business relative to many factors that I personally would not have thought of. The book went into very interesting detail about why the small investor has a big leg up on hamstrung Wall St. mutual fund managers just seeking to keep their day jobs. He even describes different types of indexes that you can buy and sell as ETFs and how these perform at higher levels than market cap indexes.

In the end, with all this high level understanding and real depth of knowledge on the intricacies of investing, I was still left without the basic strategy of how to go about valuing a business. Annoyingly, he kept alluding to us having or him later explaining the actual way to perform valuations, but it never came.

In the end, I'm like a first time fisherman trying to land a marlin with a 20 lb deep sea rod, 200 lb test line, the best lure money can buy, with no clue how to reel the **** thing in.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Make a quick $20, don't buy this book

Holy LORD this is bad ! Now I'm sure there will be some intellectuals out there that will spin his advice into a "Horoscope-Like" interpretation of how they can get their portfolio to perform better... but overall, this book tells you NOTHING!! In addition the author can't make his mind up on whether he wants to be "folksy" in his dispensing of info or an MBA throwing so much jargon at you that your head spins.
His whole premise is basically: Find Something; and Buy it for Less... But then goes on to talk about every way to determine a valuation (so that in theory you can buy it for less) and then says... yeah but that doesn't really work. Even his end advice... yeah big surprise here , invest in value mutual funds is flawed, because he pretty much admits that they will be up or down (depending on shear luck of the draw) but Never talks about how to determine if they're on the way up or down or over/under valued. Here's free advice.... There is No formula. Your best bet is to use the Bear Analogy.... If you and a buddy are getting chased by a bear, you don;t have to outrun the bear....just your buddy. Everyone is in the same crappy investment boat, as long as you hedge your bets and don;t go all in on freakin iceberg futures in Ethiopia, you'll be better off then the majority of people out there investing in lottery tickets every week. You Are Smarter Than This BOOK!!!

But I will say that the Narrator was pretty decent

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7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic!

Joel's writing style, personality, and investing insights are eye opening. It is a fantastic book.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

I don't want you to read this book

I want the secret for myself and no one else.
All Greenblatt books are great and so is this one.
This one asks the right questions in how value an investment.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Interesting concept

But leaved to general. Seems more as comercial ad to the product. It never landed in the how.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Very Interesting Information

This is a really interesting book on some specific approaches to value investing. It has a lot of practical information. The book is also relatively short and an entertaining listen -- well, for a book on this subject.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The Magic Formula

You have to go to the website The Magic Formula to get the stocks he is talking about and then keep track by selling losers and winners before or after they have been held for one year for tax purposes to make this system work.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Decent but not great

It's OK but if you have to pick one go with his "Little Book That Still Beats the Market." I found the latter to be really good. As far as this book, I must be a dummy because I never really figured out what the "Big Secret" was unless, God forbid, it was his recommendation to use a value weighted index fund and hang on. That's it? I love Greenblatt but this book is average at best. Please write a book about how to value and select individual stocks Mr. Greenblatt. Thanks.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Another good one from Mr. Greenblatt

What made the experience of listening to The Big Secret for the Small Investor the most enjoyable?

He speaks to the common investor... and some information on why the small retail investor can actually outperform the big money managers over time. If you have the time and inclination to select your own stocks (if you don't, you should put money into a very low cost index fund or index ETF), then this book will be worth your time to listen to.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Short, to the point

Enjoyed. Great point of view, backed by research. Oriented for the small investor (not institutional)

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