Amazon.com: Customer reviews: You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits

Top positive review

By far the best book on security analysis I've read so far

Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2019

If you read one book on investment, it should be Bogles "The Little Book of Common Sense Investing." But if you read one more, it should be Greenblatt's "You Can Be a Stock Market Genius." At the moment, I'm halfway through the book and I'm impressed by Greenblatt's detailed examples. I appreciate the practicality, which is all too rare in the securities analysis canon. His explanations seem intelligible even to the layman using Investopedia. After slogging through Benjamin Graham, this should be easy—and enjoyable—reading.

15 people found this helpful

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Mark Haslett

Outdated

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2020

I binged read a bunch of investment books lately and like many of the others this was probably a good book at the time but is now quite outdated. You're better off following personal finance sites on the Internet.

3 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Mark Haslett

Outdated

Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

3 people found this helpful

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F. Tyler B. Brown

Special Situations

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2011

Verified Purchase

This installment from Joel Greenblatt, now almost fifteen years old, is still a relevant and worthwhile read for aspiring do-it-yourself investors. The book expounds upon the value investing principles, first laid out in the books of Benjamin Graham and practiced by the likes of Warren Buffet, in both an accessible and entertaining way. This is not a wonk's theory-heavy tome. It is a book that attempts to cut through the obfuscating jargon of the investing world, and to move straight to the heart of the matter.

Most poignantly, like Seth Klarman's "Margin of Safety", this book delineates how to size up value opportunities, particularly in special situations: spin offs, bankruptcies, restructurings, recapitalizations, and stub stocks. It also opines on how to use long-dated equity options (LEAPs) to capitalize on investment views, and warns against the value traps present in mergers and acquisitions arbitrage investing.

This book uses primarily cases studies to highlight how value opportunities can present themselves in special situations. Greenblatt (the founder of the immensely successful hedge fund Gotham) shows how he thought through and profited from particular special situations in the past.

Greenblatt doesn't promise any false, get-rich-quick investment schemes; rather, he shows the kinds of ways one can look at special situations (while highlighting that every special situation is different) in order to capture significant profits. There is no magical prescription here, Greenblatt says. There is, however, a way to look at the world and the markets to increase the probability that you will notice the opportunities when they arise.

What this book does not do is get into is the basics of how to dissect a corporate balance sheet, income statement, and statement of cash flows. Also, this book does not talk about how to analyze particular financial ratios (Price-to-Book, Price-to-Earnings, etc.) as a way to make sense of the world. For this, one will have to look to some of Greenblatt's other writings.

In the end, for an entertaining, easy-to-read introduction to how special situations in particular can present lucrative value propositions, this book is a wonderful and recommended place to turn.

13 people found this helpful

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Gloria J

Birthday gift

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2020

Verified Purchase

Purchased for son for his birthday

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LGUNZ

Book material is fine..

Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2019

Verified Purchase

The book is a little dated, but good practical examples. The book was labeled new, definitely not new.

One person found this helpful

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James Laabs

Interesting ideas but not practical for the average investor

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2011

Verified Purchase

If you enjoy reading about investing in the stock market, this book has some interesting ideas. Obviously the author is knowledgeable and sophisticated as an investor. He includes a lot of case studies (bordering on too many case studies in my opinion, they start to come across more as filler than anything else) to illustrate his points. However, I think his techniques are impractical for the average investor. I have a full time job and don't have access to what in essence is information that may be readily available to Wall Street insiders but practically impossible for the average Joe to get. He mentions the WSJ as a source but unless you have a couple hours a day to read every article relating to investing or business news in every issue you are likely to miss the information tidbits you need to find to make his system work. All in all, this book has some interesting and informative information and case studies, but if you are looking for a true investing strategy that you can apply to your situation, look elsewhere.

8 people found this helpful

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ghostrider

Good ideas, but ...

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2012

Verified Purchase

Don't expect to suddenly be a stock market genius even after reading this book. Like most of these popular investing books, its mostly anecdotal and inspirational. Its good in that it does give you some investing ideas you might not have been aware of. You can and should dig further - I'm sure the author would agree, and he very briefly mentions some extra sources of information.
I wish there was more in the way of analysis, discussion of the thought processes that go into successful and unsuccessful investment decisions, what metrics did he pay attention to and why, what do they mean, is his interpretation of some metric debatable. Also the title is embarrassing - I wouldn't be caught reading this book in public because of it.

One person found this helpful

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David

Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2012

Verified Purchase

Despite its cheesy name, the book describes quite well the basics behind Special Situation Investing. I wished the author could supply more numbers to validate his sayings.

One person found this helpful

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MFSI

Good information, hard to read

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2014

Verified Purchase

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.

2 people found this helpful

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Vincent

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2017

Verified Purchase

Provides lots of information about making money in the market.

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L.S.-1

It seems OK -not read all...

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2015

Verified Purchase

Seems to be sort of outdated so far; I haven't read the whole book. I may come back and re-grade it. The stock market in my opinion is different from what it was when this book was written. Nowadays the market is more for traders than investors which makes it very much harder to make money because you have to learn a lot more and spend a lot more time on line. Not many people have extra time to do that.

One person found this helpful

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