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The Manual of Ideas: The Proven Framework for Finding the Best Value Investments
Reveals the proprietary framework used by an exclusive community of top money managers and value investors in their never-ending quest for untapped investment ideas Considered an indispensable source of cutting-edge research and ideas among the world's top investment firms and money managers, the journal The Manual of Ideas boasts a subscribers list that reads like a Who's Who of high finance. Written by that publication's managing editor and inspired by its mission to serve as an "idea funnel" for the world's top money managers, this book introduces you to a proven, proprietary framework for finding, researching, analyzing, and implementing the best value investing opportunities. The next best thing to taking a peek under the hoods of some of the most prodigious brains in the business, it gives you uniquely direct access to the thought processes and investment strategies of such super value investors as Warren Buffett, Seth Klarman, Glenn Greenberg, Guy Spier and Joel Greenblatt.
Written by the team behind one of the most read and talked-about sources of research and value investing ideas Reviews more than twenty pre-qualified investment ideas and provides an original ranking methodology to help you zero-in on the three to five most compelling investments Delivers a finely-tuned, proprietary investment framework, previously available only to an elite group of TMI subscribers Step-by-step, it walks you through a proven, rigorous approach to finding, researching, analyzing, and implementing worthy ideas
Written by the team behind one of the most read and talked-about sources of research and value investing ideas Reviews more than twenty pre-qualified investment ideas and provides an original ranking methodology to help you zero-in on the three to five most compelling investments Delivers a finely-tuned, proprietary investment framework, previously available only to an elite group of TMI subscribers Step-by-step, it walks you through a proven, rigorous approach to finding, researching, analyzing, and implementing worthy ideas
336 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
171 people are currently reading
2100 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
December 26, 2014
I always thought I knew the jizz of investing in the stock market but this book just blew me away with new ideas on how to, using Buffett's anology, make a buck using 50 cents! Kudos to the author for the amount of time and effort to write this book. I'd give a 10 out of 5 if possible. I borrowed it off a friend and now I just had to buy 1 for myself! The book is like an investment idea dictionary and it should not be missed by those looking for ideas on how to make a great investment strategy.
June 4, 2016
If you have read a bit about value investing, this book tells little new. If you haven't done value investing in the past, this book contains a comprehensive list of thinking of questionable contents and instruction. It's value lies as a catalogue of how other people approached value investing differently. Critical reading on this book can help establish what you should not do in value investing.
August 23, 2018
This book is a result from John Mihaljevic’s many projects, for example the websites Manual of Ideas and Valueconferences plus his investment firm, Mihaljevic Capital Management LL., and all of these are in their turn the result of his effort to answer a question he put to himself in 2003, “Should I give my savings to Warren Buffett or invest it myself?” In 2003 he had savings of 100,000 USD, after working as an analyst at Thomas Weisel for a couple of years. Ten years later he has produced this book to answer that question. I highly praise Mihaljevic’s total achievement, not the least since it’s a lot about sharing.
This is a very current book which I think is unique in the sense that it connects to all of the above-mentioned work that is ongoing in real-time. So after reading this review, buy the book, and after reading the book go to the author’s website http://www.manualofideas.com/ to be updated with the latest details as well. The Manual of Ideas is not a beginner’s book, but I still maintain that everyone, including those who think they know everything, will learn something from this book.
The first chapter spells out the author’s personal story and gives you a great framework, nothing really new if you are a value investor already but a very nice summary and also the chapter the author recommends the most. The following nine chapters are devoted to various ways to make money. Some of the chapters are unnecessarily long and slightly repetitive. More actual examples would have been helpful. All “Magic Formula lovers” are in for a treat in chapter four. It contains a lot of insights and a guest appearance by Joel Greenblatt, who takes his formula further.
However my three favorite chapters are, three, eight and nine. Chapter three – Sum-of-The-Parts-Value - is an intriguing chapter that I found very useful, not least the list of ten investors specialized in finding these types of situations with CIK number to search SEC filings. Chapter eight - Special Situations – has a few wonderful pages on behavioral issues and how everyone can improve themselves (writing an investment diary). This chapter also has a list of websites/blogs that the author recommends. Since they were quite a few, I asked Mihaljevic for his top picks and they are: Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax, Old School Value, and the American Association of Individual Investors. Chapter nine – Equity Stubs - is a very insightful chapter on the dynamic of equity and debt. “I look for situations where I think prices reflect some sort of probability misjudgment”.
Most of Mihaljevic’s ideas are problematic as value investing in many ways means investing when things are bad (and even getting worse), i.e. you have no trigger and need to be patient. There is some discussion on the topic in the book in most every chapter, which I think could have merited a chapter by itself. However, the author kindly provided me with the following answer: “Timing and catalysts are some of the most misunderstood concepts in investing. The problem is that if a catalyst is evident, the stock price will have already moved to reflect the catalyst. Meanwhile, most investors don't have the patience to buy a clearly undervalued company in the absence of an identifiable catalyst.
Ironically, my experience has been that truly cheap equities outperform even without a catalyst. Ben Graham referred to this as the mystery of the market, which acts as a "weighing machine" over time. Smart investors like Joel Greenblatt have even talked about "time arbitrage" as a strategy, referring to the market-beating returns available to investors who are willing to invest without worrying about timing”. This actually fits very well with my own view and it’s very neatly formulated above. If I would add a little bit to this, it would be to stay clear of companies/industries at risk of being in secular decline and capital-intensive industries, especially if they have a lot of debt. Otherwise you run the risk of a permanent loss of capital and you don’t have time on your side.
I am very happy that Mihaljevic didn’t give his savings to Buffett, but instead wrote this book and everything else. I look forward to his next book and all other pursuits. Best of luck John, and please make sure to write another book.
This is a very current book which I think is unique in the sense that it connects to all of the above-mentioned work that is ongoing in real-time. So after reading this review, buy the book, and after reading the book go to the author’s website http://www.manualofideas.com/ to be updated with the latest details as well. The Manual of Ideas is not a beginner’s book, but I still maintain that everyone, including those who think they know everything, will learn something from this book.
The first chapter spells out the author’s personal story and gives you a great framework, nothing really new if you are a value investor already but a very nice summary and also the chapter the author recommends the most. The following nine chapters are devoted to various ways to make money. Some of the chapters are unnecessarily long and slightly repetitive. More actual examples would have been helpful. All “Magic Formula lovers” are in for a treat in chapter four. It contains a lot of insights and a guest appearance by Joel Greenblatt, who takes his formula further.
However my three favorite chapters are, three, eight and nine. Chapter three – Sum-of-The-Parts-Value - is an intriguing chapter that I found very useful, not least the list of ten investors specialized in finding these types of situations with CIK number to search SEC filings. Chapter eight - Special Situations – has a few wonderful pages on behavioral issues and how everyone can improve themselves (writing an investment diary). This chapter also has a list of websites/blogs that the author recommends. Since they were quite a few, I asked Mihaljevic for his top picks and they are: Corner of Berkshire and Fairfax, Old School Value, and the American Association of Individual Investors. Chapter nine – Equity Stubs - is a very insightful chapter on the dynamic of equity and debt. “I look for situations where I think prices reflect some sort of probability misjudgment”.
Most of Mihaljevic’s ideas are problematic as value investing in many ways means investing when things are bad (and even getting worse), i.e. you have no trigger and need to be patient. There is some discussion on the topic in the book in most every chapter, which I think could have merited a chapter by itself. However, the author kindly provided me with the following answer: “Timing and catalysts are some of the most misunderstood concepts in investing. The problem is that if a catalyst is evident, the stock price will have already moved to reflect the catalyst. Meanwhile, most investors don't have the patience to buy a clearly undervalued company in the absence of an identifiable catalyst.
Ironically, my experience has been that truly cheap equities outperform even without a catalyst. Ben Graham referred to this as the mystery of the market, which acts as a "weighing machine" over time. Smart investors like Joel Greenblatt have even talked about "time arbitrage" as a strategy, referring to the market-beating returns available to investors who are willing to invest without worrying about timing”. This actually fits very well with my own view and it’s very neatly formulated above. If I would add a little bit to this, it would be to stay clear of companies/industries at risk of being in secular decline and capital-intensive industries, especially if they have a lot of debt. Otherwise you run the risk of a permanent loss of capital and you don’t have time on your side.
I am very happy that Mihaljevic didn’t give his savings to Buffett, but instead wrote this book and everything else. I look forward to his next book and all other pursuits. Best of luck John, and please make sure to write another book.
November 6, 2025
So, this book covers value investing from various angles. The forte is that you are bound to find something interesting in one of the chapters on which you are free to read more about from other books. None of the chapters are comprehensive enough to be standalone books, but they give you a good general overview.
I found the small cap chapter very interesting because the investment newsletter that I sort of help out at doesn't really cover them and I believe there is excess returns to be had from a class of stocks that beat the market by default. So far, I have not learned too much about those but I am certainly interested as they are analysis worthy and there are probably some investment worthy stocks at any given time.
The chapter on special situations was interesting but there is also an entirely separate book about that if you want to dig deeper into it (Greenblatt's You Can Be a Stock Market Genius). Equity stubs, I didn't care about. I'm not interested in leverage. International value is a given since I'm not investing in any stock from my home country. But since I'm US biased, just because I like that country for investing, it means that when a book advocates for international, it means that we're actually coming back from that direction a little bit, like investing in Europe or in China. So that one was definitely interesting. Following the leaders: Well, you are free to copy others, but the book tells you why that may or may not be a good idea.
The book gives you sort of a quick glance at some different strategies or how you would approach each angle. It does cite many other books that I have actually read. So in that sense there were chapters that gave me nothing new. But overall I believe this is an intermediate book just before you want to specialize in some of the ways. And not just slap the value investing label on whatever you are doing and call it a day. Like anything in life, this is more nuanced and this book helps you find what you like best about investing. Like in each chapter it covers or gives you reasons why a different approach works. So it follows the same structure for every chapter which is good because it's a very pragmatic way. It helps you understand how to screen for them, what kind of questions to ask about your potential targets. And what I liked best was the takeaways after every chapter. If you just re-read those, if you need a refresher of the book, then there you have it. The lists are being served to you on a silver platter.
Pabrai's example of Nakakita Seisakusho stood out and I bookmarked it at 93%.
I found the small cap chapter very interesting because the investment newsletter that I sort of help out at doesn't really cover them and I believe there is excess returns to be had from a class of stocks that beat the market by default. So far, I have not learned too much about those but I am certainly interested as they are analysis worthy and there are probably some investment worthy stocks at any given time.
The chapter on special situations was interesting but there is also an entirely separate book about that if you want to dig deeper into it (Greenblatt's You Can Be a Stock Market Genius). Equity stubs, I didn't care about. I'm not interested in leverage. International value is a given since I'm not investing in any stock from my home country. But since I'm US biased, just because I like that country for investing, it means that when a book advocates for international, it means that we're actually coming back from that direction a little bit, like investing in Europe or in China. So that one was definitely interesting. Following the leaders: Well, you are free to copy others, but the book tells you why that may or may not be a good idea.
The book gives you sort of a quick glance at some different strategies or how you would approach each angle. It does cite many other books that I have actually read. So in that sense there were chapters that gave me nothing new. But overall I believe this is an intermediate book just before you want to specialize in some of the ways. And not just slap the value investing label on whatever you are doing and call it a day. Like anything in life, this is more nuanced and this book helps you find what you like best about investing. Like in each chapter it covers or gives you reasons why a different approach works. So it follows the same structure for every chapter which is good because it's a very pragmatic way. It helps you understand how to screen for them, what kind of questions to ask about your potential targets. And what I liked best was the takeaways after every chapter. If you just re-read those, if you need a refresher of the book, then there you have it. The lists are being served to you on a silver platter.
Pabrai's example of Nakakita Seisakusho stood out and I bookmarked it at 93%.
January 19, 2019
Along with an "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", a great set of stories, step-by-step analysis, and most importantly, counterexamples within the domain of "Graham-style" value/fundamental investing. The book starts with the very basics of the "cigar butt"/"Deep value"/net-net investing, looking for stock of companies with net valuations after net and liquidation value are discounted. A lot of pink sheet hunting could be characterized as this sort of "quantitative filter" strategy. The authors then proceed to cover several counterexamples of how such a strategy could fail and describe nuances with respect to valuation based on firmographic features.
The book proceeds next to describe and cover different types of "smart" investing based on capitalization size, special event/timing, international companies etc. Will have to listen to this two or three times to ensure I retain as much of the tips as possible.
The one issue with this book is that many of the strategies are centred on firms operating with traditional physical capital compositions, that could be understood via traditional accounting plant/labour type purview. It will be a different type of analysis to price firms whose value largely lies in intangibles, like an FB or Uber.
Also, although the book has a smaller section on analyzing firms with irregular trading, there should be a lot more of this type of material, although this may technically fall under the venture capital style of investing, not sure. Overall very valuable and common sense book that should help an individual make their way in doing some bargain hunting now that we've *seem* to hit a local troth
The book proceeds next to describe and cover different types of "smart" investing based on capitalization size, special event/timing, international companies etc. Will have to listen to this two or three times to ensure I retain as much of the tips as possible.
The one issue with this book is that many of the strategies are centred on firms operating with traditional physical capital compositions, that could be understood via traditional accounting plant/labour type purview. It will be a different type of analysis to price firms whose value largely lies in intangibles, like an FB or Uber.
Also, although the book has a smaller section on analyzing firms with irregular trading, there should be a lot more of this type of material, although this may technically fall under the venture capital style of investing, not sure. Overall very valuable and common sense book that should help an individual make their way in doing some bargain hunting now that we've *seem* to hit a local troth
May 17, 2019
This is one of the most useful value investing books I have read. It covers a variety of investing methods, offering screening methods and other tips from many top investors. I bookmarked, took many notes, and will be coming back to this for reference frequently. If you want to get the ball rolling toward finding more value investments, this book is full of ideas about where to look for stocks and how to evaluate them.
August 11, 2020
This book does a great job explaining a lot of value strategies including deep value, asset focused, micro caps, special situations, leveraged equities and international equities. The book is filled with interesting and valuable information and I would recommend it to anyone getting into value investing. That said, most of the concepts are pretty basic and there might not be much to take away in terms of actionable strategy.
July 15, 2021
Here is another subject that intrigues me forever. This book get more technical than most, and I'm not talking about charts. These guys look for fundamental flaws and strengths in the financial filings of companies, in order to screen for value investing. I think their advice is very valuable even though it's a few years old. Very good lessons in financial research.
May 6, 2024
Didn't finish the book, too ordinary, nothing special.
This book might make sense to read if you are completely new to the field of investing, but otherwise waste of your time.
There is really no new information, a lot of it is just regurgitated stuff already mentioned several times in more knowable books, or even online articles.
Protect your time preciously and find a better book.
This book might make sense to read if you are completely new to the field of investing, but otherwise waste of your time.
There is really no new information, a lot of it is just regurgitated stuff already mentioned several times in more knowable books, or even online articles.
Protect your time preciously and find a better book.
March 4, 2019
Got it as a gift and scanned through it. I think most of the lessons around value investing (which the book basically summarizes at a high level) have been pretty well absorbed by market participants, and aren't likely to be as useful anymore.
March 13, 2021
Excellent book for amateur value investors... Helps you think logically about various situations and helps you generate ideas for further research and investments. Very aptly named....it surely is a manual of ideas!
August 23, 2022
Great introduction to the various methods of value investing. Some of the detailed ideas can be complex for someone who doesn't have a background or professional experience, but I still enjoyed the parts that work better for a general audience.
February 19, 2017
Actionable ideas right here!No fluff with valuable insights.
August 25, 2017
A manual to find ideas from net - nets to special situations with examples
December 11, 2019
Ok book on investment. However it adds nothing new. Comments on the back of the book are much too positive. Many other better books on same subject
January 17, 2023
Solid resource for special sits
August 17, 2023
First book I've ever read that gives tangible investment advice
September 12, 2023
I like the idea of the book. Some of the "ideas" were a little more interesting than other.
Read
September 13, 2024A fantastic read for every aspiring value investors
August 15, 2025
Good book. Great ideas to help pick equities to invest in. Give a lot of different methods and strategies. I will be referring to this book again In the future.
October 6, 2025
Good skim, good intro overview of traditional value investing for retail.
Nothing new if you spend a lot of time on Value Investors Club or are deep in this philosophy.
Nothing new if you spend a lot of time on Value Investors Club or are deep in this philosophy.
October 13, 2019
I like this book. There are some good frameworks for investing here. It could be used as a cyclopedia for investment.
January 13, 2015
Trhnout trhem, to je, oč tu běží! Knih o hodnotovém investování jsem přečetl v uplynulých měsících řadu. Kroky stranou pomíjím, drobné přešlapy si však zaslouží minirecenzi. Knižní výcuc elitního amerického žurnálu Manual of Ideas, jehož předplatné není jinak zrovna nejlevnější, se honosí podtitulem Osvědčený framework pro nalezení nejlepších hodnotových investic. A opravdu nabízí na první pohled impozantní přehled investičních strategií a postupů. Zato se ale opravdu špatně čte, což mě zabolelo hlavně u kapitol o knihách, které jsem četl i zvlášť a nebyly ani zdaleka tak strojené. Pokud tohle dokážete u odborné literatury překousnout a zorientovat se v různorodých modelech, dá vám Manuál nápadů skutečně spoustu nových podnětů. A mimochodem, hned na několika místech autor cituje mezi investory světového formátu i našeho Dana Gladiše, zakladatele hedgefondu Vltava a spolupořadatele 1. české investiční konference.
February 1, 2015
After having read Guy Spier's The education of a value investor and having seen many youtube videos from the impressive collection of work done by the valueconferences.com on youtube the next natural step for me was to learn more about the work of John Mihaljevic. Impressive analysis of many great value investors which reminded me of Whitney Tilson's book The art of value investing. It also reminded me that I am still at the early stages of my learning after having been caught by the Buffet/Munger bug and that I still have a lot more material to study. Thank you Guy Spier for recommending this book.
November 28, 2015
This is a very good book that pulls together various streams of value investing. If you are familiar with value investing concepts and are a moderately well read investor, you will not find anything new conceptually, but still the book does a very good job of providing an excellent overview of the value investing styles and process of implementing different styles. I would have liked more practical examples and / or case studies of how the author himself arrived at different decisions which is not covered at all. So in the end it feels a bit like too much theory and too little practice and that is why I deducted one star. But this is well worth the cost and I am glad that I bought it and read it and I am sure I will refer to this in the future as well
September 7, 2025
The author leveraged his decades of interviewing and investing experience to provide a relatively thorough breakdown of the most popular styles of investing. While you likely will learn little about your preferred style, understanding how other investors think is instructive and this book helps the process
December 21, 2014
This book is a very refreshing read of already tested and proved value investing principles.The author has done a great effort in presenting the collective wisdom of the greatest minds, that he has collected throughout his investment career.
February 13, 2016
A must for any serious value investor
Recommend this book to anyone who would like to take value investing seriously.
Very well structured and excellent insight from an impeccable value investing publication.
Recommend this book to anyone who would like to take value investing seriously.
Very well structured and excellent insight from an impeccable value investing publication.
March 28, 2016
Good read
I found this book to be well written and generally instructive on business evaluation and investment appraisal as well as it provided me with a wealth of ideas. I recommend this book to all persons interested in business and investing.
HM
I found this book to be well written and generally instructive on business evaluation and investment appraisal as well as it provided me with a wealth of ideas. I recommend this book to all persons interested in business and investing.
HM
September 27, 2016
Source of wealth! Better that this is your the fiftieth business book than your first. I would not have enjoyed it if it was my first business book since I would be unable to appreciate the deluge of references he makes to other value related books, investors and businesses.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews