Our Story & Investment Philosophy
“Buy stocks for less than they are worth and hold them as long as it takes for the market to appreciate how undervalued they are.” – John Templeton
Our Mission
Value Investing Sage is dedicated to one mission: helping individual investors find deeply undervalued stocks using the same rigorous, time-tested frameworks applied by the greatest investors in history — Benjamin Graham, Walter Schloss, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Seth Klarman, and John Templeton.
We cut through market noise and emotional investing by applying disciplined quantitative screening — identifying stocks trading below their intrinsic value using valuation multiples such as Price-to-Earnings (PE), Price-to-Sales (PS), and Price-to-Book (PB). Every recommendation is cross-checked against quality criteria developed with professional accountants, financial analysts, and research professionals to eliminate speculative or manipulative stocks.
In order to filter out the junk (risky and manipulative) stocks, we have developed several criteria. Our criteria have been developed with the assistance of experienced Professional Accountants, Financial Analysts, Research Analysts, in addition to the guidance of legends of deep value investing.
During the 1930s, Benjamin Graham popularized deep value investing through seminars and widely acclaimed books, such as The Intelligent Investor and Security Analysis. Following Graham, many famous deep value investors purchased beaten-down securities for fractions of their value, earning the highest returns of their careers. Walter Schloss, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Seth Klarman, and John Templeton are some of these influential individuals.
Small investors can learn about deep value investing from Value Investing Sage. Investing in deep value stocks can be a bit of a challenge for those of us without experience, which is why we also offer subscription service by our monthly Investment Letter (TVISIL) which offers investment analysis on international deep value stocks.
Our 5 Proven Deep Value Strategies
Each of our five strategies has a track record spanning over a century of real-world market performance. They are grounded in the work of legendary value investors and refined with modern quantitative screening — giving you a repeatable, emotion-free process to find stocks the market has overlooked.
Each strategy below is rooted in academic research, decades of successful application by legendary investors, and independently verified backtested performance. They focus on finding stocks priced significantly below their fundamental value — the essence of what Graham called the “margin of safety.”
Acquirer’s Multiple
Tobias Carlisle’s Acquirer’s Multiple takes both EV/EBIT and EV/EBITDA into account and looks for companies that suit activist investors and private equity. Companies in this category are trading at extremely low prices in relation to earnings.
Pay Daddy
There is no better strategy than this for investors who want regular income from their investments. This method was developed long ago by Benjamin Graham, based on a conservative appraisal of a company’s liquidation value. He called them Net Net Stocks.
Negative EV
You get paid to own stock. The market price per share of these stocks is below the Net Cash per share, i.e. the cash and the cash equivalents of these companies exceed the market cap and total debt. A rigid system with astounding results.
Ultra
As Walter Schloss once said, the stocks that trade the lowest relative to their Book Values will produce the most profit. These firms trade at a fraction of their Net Tangible Asset Value and may also have a share buyback or insider buyback program. The results are incredibly positive.
Simple Way 2.0
Graham’s simple way strategy of 1976 is re-envisioned in our own way. This stock offers a low Price to Earnings (the Current Year’s Estimated Earnings) with a market beating Dividend Yield and less than 1.5x Price to Book Value. It has been a tremendous success.
Why These Strategies?
Why Small Investors?
Warren Buffett
Warren buffet had some very clear advice for small investors on how they should handle their money:
” If I were working with small sums, I certainly would be much more inclined to look among Classic Graham stocks, very low PEs and below working capital and all that. I would do far better percentage-wise if I were working with small sums … you have thousands and thousands of potential opportunities and … we have relatively few possibilities in the investment world … So you have a huge advantage over me if you are working with very little money. “
It is interesting to note that many small investors ignore this significant benefit when competing up against the professionals by purchasing large-cap stocks or attempting to predict future market returns. The vast majority of small investors who use high-performance deep value strategies to invest in modest firms can beat the market, as well as most expert financial backers (Professionals who have a significant amount of money). Even so, not everyone knows how to pick their own stocks and many investors lack the opportunity to do so, even if they have the information. Our goal is to help these small investors achieve remarkable returns over their lifetime by helping them exploit high-performing deep value strategies.