You Can Be a Stock Market Genius

Don't let the breezy title fool you — Joel Greenblatt is teaching sophisticated strategies here. Spinoffs, post-bankruptcy stocks, merger securities, rights offerings: these are the corporate events that most institutional investors are structurally prevented from exploiting, and Greenblatt argues that creates real opportunity for individual investors willing to do the research. He backs it with a documented 50% annualized return track record at Gotham Capital and cites academic evidence on spinoff outperformance. The case studies are from the 1980s and 1990s, which can feel dated, and the conversational title genuinely undersells how much work the strategies require. But the core concepts remain valid, and serious value investors still rank this among the best practical investing books written.