The Little Book That Still Beats the Market

Greenblatt is one of the most successful value investors of the modern era — Gotham Capital returned 40% annualized for two decades. He distilled what he does into a "magic formula" that any human with a spreadsheet can run: rank stocks by earnings yield and return on capital, buy the top, hold a year, repeat. The math, when he tested it back to 1988, beat the market by a comical margin. Whether the formula still works in 2026 is a fair question — once everyone knows the trade, the edge erodes. But the underlying framework — buy good companies cheap — is timeless. Four worms. Short, sharp, and the rare investing book that's actually fun to read.