The Value Connection: A Four-Step Market Screening Method to Match Good Companies with Good Stocks

Value is a concept that frequently eludes investors–especially when it comes to stocks. But it’s well worth the effort to nail it down. Successfully answering valuation questions can make the difference between picking a winner and getting burned. The Value Connection offers a systematic and feasible method that will allow you to identify value in the stock market and get your money’s worth from the stocks you choose.Getting your money’s worth may sound like an obvious goal, but putting the concept into practice is a difficult task if you’re unprepared, or if you cling to traditional preoccupations with finding share prices that are low compared to book value earnings, and so forth. A stock price that first seems to be low, may become quite high if the quality of the “merchandise” (the company you’ve invested in) is poor.

Based on author Marc Gerstein’s market screening method, The Value Connection shows you how to seek companies whose underlying merits are reasonable in light of the prices you’ll pay for their shares. You’ll learn techniques for different stock market behaviors, how to assess merchandise, how to evaluate price, and how to determine whether prices are fair when considering a firm’s overall worth.

After this brief introduction, you’ll receive a detailed explanation of each step, and learn how each of the market screening method’s four steps can be applied to the value connection investment style. Through in-depth insights, practical advice, and informative case studies, The Value Connection will prepare you to use this four-step screening method in your trading endeavors to:

• Find potentially attractive value connections
• Analyze specific ideas to see if the value connection is sound
• Buy the best value-connected opportunities
• Sell the stocks for which the value connection has dimmed

By focusing on ways to separately assess a company and its stock price, the value connection method will help bridge the gap connecting good companies and good stocks–and boost your bottom line in the process. In using the value connection method, you’ll always have a rational answer to why you like a company, why you think its stock is reasonably valued, why you did or did not buy the stock, and why you sold or continue to hold a certain stock in your portfolio.

Discover The Value Connection”The Value Connection is aimed at serious investors who seek a systematic, structured approach to building and maintaining equity portfolios. It provides a flexible framework to select good stocks and–perhaps more important–it includes a disciplined approach to the critical hold vs. sell decision. Investors who follow the methodology detailed in The Value Connection will find themselves better organized, more focused, and ultimately more successful.”
–Lou Kirschbaum
Managing Director and Portfolio Manager
Eagle Asset Management, Inc.

“As a disciple of value-oriented investing for the last thirty-six years, I found The Value Connection an excellent way to reinvigorate my faith. With the practice of value investing becoming ever more sophisticated, this critical review of today’s cutting-edge methods is a must for the professional investor.”
–Thomas White
Thomas White International, Ltd.

“The Value Connection connects the reader with a way to get one’s money’s worth from stock investing regardless of present market conditions, fads, or recent trends. This book is a must-have in learning the basic tenets of long term value equity investing. Gerstein’s easy-to-read commonsense guide helps the investor understand why long term value investing pays off!”