Benjamin Graham’s Net-Net Stock Strategy: A practical guide to successful deep value investing in today’s markets

This is a good and practical book which explains how to employ an effective stock strategy- buying cheap stocks by net current assets. Evan Bleker walks the reader through his strategy for employing this strategy, first by describing the strategy, describing his employ of it, providing evidence that it works, giving his tactics, and then giving some examples of how it has worked for him with case studies. The book is easy to read and well worth the time.I always found this strategy to make intellectual sense-why not buy stocks that are cheap by Net Current Asset Value- a built-in protection on the price. Bleker is an enthusiastic cheerleader for the idea. Would have loved to have seen his results on every stock listed on his website.He provided a “Special Sauce” to the strategy which is basically his tactics. Some of these ideas are counter-intuitive, like for example to avoid stocks in one of the fastest growing economies in the world, (China) or to hold a large number of these stocks. You would think that a small number of stocks, carefully selected, would be a good idea, but that is not recommended. Diversification is crucial. He offers several other ideas, and some are not adequately explained and seem just like witchcraft (avoid the NYSE stocks) but are apparently rooted in back-testing.I read the Kindle version, and found some of the charts a bit hard to read, but that could be due to my lack of keen eyes and had to blow up the charts to a legible size.I note that the examples given throughout the book are somewhat dated. This does not really change their usefulness.One other thing I would note- a key requirement for this strategy to be accessible is that the chosen business does not go out of business. His provided rules will help in this regard. I would also recommend the study of failing/failed enterprises. One easy read book in this vein is Dead Companies Walking by Scott Fearon, for example.After reading this book, I do intend to try out the strategy, which speaks volumes. I feel I would be in good company with Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett and Peter Cundill, 3 giants of finance.

This is the way to approach value investing. Graham was no doubt an incredible investor and intellect, but to be honest, it takes dedication to get through many of his works. Not so here. The author has done us all a solid by updating Graham's concepts in this well-organized and easy to read book. I especially appreciate the many relevant, modern examples. If you want to truly understand how Warren Buffet got the best returns of his life and dive into net-nets, this book is for you.

I had heard reference to net-net investing on a podcast I began following in the Coronavirus quarantine period, and while they were not totally dismissive of this approach, it was not their angle. However, it seemed fascinating to learn more about, and as that podcast and others fed upon each other with more and more references, I eventually came to the author's website and have been a free email list subscriber for around 90 days now, after reading some of his articles/posts, which resonated. Purchasing this book was my next step in becoming fluent in this style of investing.I found the writing style crisp, clear, and while not overly filled with jargon, written for the intermediate investor in mind, though I felt it crossed over to beginners and experts as well. I was particularly impressed with the effort put into the footnotes, bibliography and index. All to often these elements are given short shrift on books that are selling a system. Not this one. There are a plethora of references to additional interviews/articles/books I will be adding to my net-net education, and financial education overall. The book is nicely sized, has good flow and is logically presented.My biggest quibble with the book was the reporting of the author's returns using the strategy. It felt a bit dodgy in spots, hopping from his first 5 years of "early period" returns to overall American net-net returns to his more recent 5 year period encompassing international stocks in addition to American ones. While I appreciate his approach has evolved, I would have preferred to see returns straight through and not with 2 different data points. It also doesn't have 2019 returns included, though those are available on the website now. I feel if you are holding yourself out as a financial professional with a book and a service, audited returns should be par for the course and include compounded average returns. Especially with not a long track record and not coming to this from a previous investment career/discipline with name recognition. That said, I do recognize the author's pluck to carve out his own niche in investing, one might say way out on the deep end, and the demonstrated desire to adapt and improve. I did not get the feeling the book/service is the money generator here, and that he's deeply immersed in security selection, "eating his own cooking" as the saying goes.For the reporting reason, I considered giving the book 4 stars, and would rather give it 4.5 stars than 5, but this aside, I felt the book greatly enhanced my knowledge of net-net investing and will be a go-to reference book as I carve out a portion of my portfolio devoted to this style of investing. It has relevance to security selection beyond just the net-net universe.

This book is a comprehensive guide to Ben Graham style Net Working Capital or Net-Net stock investing, based on selecting stocks with high NCAV (net current asset value) to price. If you are interested in this potentially very lucrative deep value investing strategy, then this is the book to get. Whilst clearly aimed at Net-Net investing, there is plenty of sage advice about investing in general to make this book worth a read.Whilst reading the initial section (where the author sets the background information) I found myself with a lot of unanswered questions, but persevere and you will be rewarded because as the author keeps saying, there will be 'more on that later'.The author does have a subscription membership site (only mentioned a couple of times and not even a weblink), but this is not a thinly veiled advertisment for his services, nor is it poorly written or full of errors (like so many other 'books' on Amazon). All the information needed to follow this strategy is in the book, along with the authors 'Net-Net Scorecard' - an invaluable checklist to help you improve your stock picks (and which could easily be adapted to suit many styles of investing). I particularly liked the fact that the author takes you step-by-step through his stock picking in the most efficient order.There are several examples of the author's trades in the book, which are laid out clearly showing the author's thought process, method of evaluation and execution. It would have been nice to have seen more examples, and I would like to see an equity/drawdown chart to help evaluate this style of investing.What you do get is the author's in depth knowledge based on detailed research and many years of experience, and an investing system ready to utilise as it is, or integrate & adapt to your own investing style.

The book is simply written and can be read very quickly. The book begins with a general description of a net-net strategy that has worked so well in the past. Even though I have already been acquainted with the strategy through Evan’s newsletter, I got a deeper insight into it. For me, the most interesting part was a description of the factors to consider when choosing an investment. These factors can then serve the individual as a checklist when buying shares. What surprised me about the book was that, unlike many other books, it is much more specific in instructing the investor on how to choose the best stocks. The only thing I was missing was clearer instructions on when to sell the stock. Overall, however, this book completely met my expectations, so I would recommend it to anyone who wants a more concrete guide in stock picking.

The book goes quite straight to the point, which makes absorbing the contents easier. I really like that it provides some academic backing on top of the more usual practical track record, the different approaches (mechanical vs qualitative, discount vs quality, etc) and how the author has been going about overcoming some of the practical difficulties associated with the strategy (screening, little liquidity, etc). Especially suited for relatively new investors, although more experienced ones will also find some interesting thoughts. Recommended.

After having read „Security Analysis“ and „Intelligent Investor“, I was intrigued by Benjamin Graham‘s Net Net Strategy. After some research on potential stocks I quickly came to the point where I needed some more guidance on how to select worthwhile companies and tried to find cases about other successfull deep value investors. That‘s when I stumbled on Evan Bleker‘s book and it delivers on the promise. There are case studies, several criteria how to choose companies, an overview on academic studies backing the strategy, best practices and a little guide on how to find them with publicly available screening tools. All things considered the book is a nice concise overview how to put Grahams Net Net Strategy into practice.

When studiing net net stocks, I collected much knowledge by reading scientific papers as well as old classic investment books. All outlined the strategy, but nobody gave a realy good instruction how to do it. This book is a really practical guide how to invest in net net stocks as well as many studies are included, that show the great performance of net net stocks. You should clearly read it, when you plan to invest in these kind of stocks.