The Manual of Ideas

Mihaljevic edits an investment research publication and organises the book around nine categories of value investing idea, giving the reasoning, the screening approach and the specific risks for each.

The categories include deep value in the Graham tradition, meaning securities trading below net current asset value or at severe discounts to tangible assets; sum of the parts, where a company's segments are worth more separately than the market values them together; jockey stocks, meaning investments made primarily on the quality of the managers rather than on the business; followers, meaning positions taken alongside investors with strong records, using public disclosure filings; small companies below the coverage threshold of institutional analysts; special situations including spinoffs, merger securities and post-bankruptcy equity; equity stubs and leveraged situations; international and emerging market opportunities where information is less complete; and businesses with durable competitive advantages available at reasonable prices.

For each he covers where the mispricing comes from, how to screen for candidates, the analytical steps required, and the specific ways the category produces losses. The book also covers the process of generating ideas systematically, maintaining a research pipeline, and the discipline of position sizing.

The reference has verified the book's structure and its categorical approach and has not verified every case study in detail. It is a practitioner's reference rather than an argument, which makes it useful as a checklist for where to look and less useful read straight through. The screening approaches assume access to data services. Several categories have become more crowded since publication, particularly spinoffs and disclosure-following.