John P. Reese & Jack M. Forehand 
The Guru Investor 
How to Beat the Market Using History’s Best Investment Strategies

Today’s investor is faced with a myriad of investment options and
strategies. Whether you are seeking someone to manage your money or
are a self-directed investor deciding to tackle the market on your
own, the options can be overwhelming.

In an easy-to-read and simple format, this book will dissect the
strategies of some of Wall Street’s most successful investment
gurus and teach readers how to weed through the all of the choices
to find a strategy that works for them. The model portfolio system
that author John Reese developed turns each strategy into an
actionable system, addressing many of the common mistakes that doom
individual investors to market underperformance. This book will
focus on the principles behind the author’s multi-guru approach,
showing how investors can combine the proven strategies of these
legendary ‘gurus’ into a disciplined investing system that has
significantly outperformed the market.

Gurus covered in the book are: Benjamin Graham; John Neff; David
Dreman; Warren Buffett; Peter Lynch; Ken Fisher; Martin Zweig;
James O’Shaughnessy; Joel Greenblatt; and Joseph Piotroski.

Table of Content

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction xi

Part One Why You Need this Book 1

Chapter 1 Learn from the Worst 3

Chapter 2 The Cavalry Arrives 19

Part Two The Value Legends 31

Chapter 3 Benjamin Graham: The Granddaddy of the Gurus 33

Chapter 4 John Neff: The Investor’s Investor 55

Chapter 5 David Dreman: The Great Contrarian 73

Chapter 6 Warren Buffett: The Greatest Guru 95

Part Three The Growth Legends (With a Value Twist) 127

Chapter 7 Peter Lynch: The Star ‘GARP’ Manager 129

Chapter 8 Kenneth L. Fisher: The Price-Sales Pioneer 155

Chapter 9 Martin Zweig: The Conservative Growth Investor 175

Part Four The Pure Quants 197

Chapter 10 James O’Shaughnessy: The Quintessential Quant 199

Chapter 11 Joel Greenblatt: The Man with the Magic Formula 219

Chapter 12 Joseph Piotroski: The Undiscovered Academic 233

Part Five From Theory to Practice 247

Chapter 13 Putting It Together: The Principles of Guru Investing 249

Chapter 14 The Missing Piece: Determining When to Sell 269

Conclusion Time To Take The Wheel 279

Appendix A Performance of Guru-Based 10- and 20-Stock Model Portfolios 283

Appendix B Guru Yearly Track Record Comparison (Actual or Back-Tested Returns) 287

References 295

About the Authors 303

Index 305

About the author

JOHN P. REESE, MBA, is the founder and CEO of Validea.com and Validea Capital Management. He is also portfolio manager for the Omega American and International Consensus mutual funds offered in the Canadian market. He is a regular columnist for Forbes.com, Real Money.com, and Israel’s Globes newspaper. He holds two patents in the area of automated stock analysis and is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

JACK M. FOREHAND, CFA, is President of Validea.com and cofounder of Validea Capital Management, LLC. Working in conjunction with John Reese, Forehand led the development of Validea’s investment models as well as the quantitative testing that led to the creation of Validea Capital Management’s consensus portfolios. He graduated from the honors program of the University of Connecticut with a BA in economics and is a CFA charterholder.