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Algy Hall
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Four Ways to Beat the Market: A practical guide to stock-screening strategies to help you pick winning shares Kindle Edition

by Algy Hall (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
See all formats and editions
Investors in stocks are faced with two major problems:

How to find and interpret the most useful data from company accounts.
How to whittle down the list of thousands of public companies into a smaller pool of candidates for further research.

In Four Ways to Beat the Market, experienced financial journalist Algy Hall provides the solution to both problems and helps investors in their quest to pick winning shares.

The answer lies in stock screens.

Over a decade, the four stock screens described here outperformed the market by 270% to 336%. These stock screens are ridiculously powerful – but staggeringly simple.

Algy starts with four strategies for equity investing:

Quality, Value, Income and Momentum.

He shows how to construct four stock screens and use data from company accounts, including common accounting ratios, to filter stocks on the criteria that each of these strategies is looking for.

And once the shortlist of screened stocks is produced, Algy explains how to use that shortlist as a basis for further analysis and research, before making an investment.

Along the way, Algy also reveals the logical and empirical basis behind Quality, Value, Income and Momentum strategies, to help investors understand why they work and give them the confidence that they will continue to work in the future. Many other hints, tricks and tactics for investors are revealed, to help investors spot the best stocks and avoid the duds.

With Algy Hall as your guide, discover the surprising ideas and stories that lie behind these strategies, while building the necessary know-how to improve your investment returns.
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  1. Print length
    320 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harriman House
  5. Publication date
    May 16, 2023
  6. File size
    4710 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Algy Hall is an award-winning financial journalist and an Associate Editor of the Investors’ Chronicle magazine.

He began his career in 1998 as a researcher for a small investment fund and writer for The Investment Trust Newsletter. He assisted in the founding of Citywire in 1999 where he worked for several years tracking the activities of fund managers and shrewd investors and reporting on the shares they bought and sold.

Algy joined Investors’ Chronicle in 2007 and began writing his stock screening column for the magazine in 2011. Algy used the column to try to mimic the investment styles he had seen used by successful investors as well as to apply ideas from the literature on finance and quantitative investing.

Algy has won CFA awards for his writing on “ESG” and “Value and Transparency” and was named the CFA UK’s 2021 Financial Journalist of the Year.

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BCKX62CM
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harriman House (May 16, 2023)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 16, 2023
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 4710 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 20 ratings

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Algy Hall

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Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
20 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Bogumil K. Baranowski
5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal book!
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
Algy does a terrific job explaining everything from financials to a variety of ways of picking winning stocks; there is something here that most curious investors, both new and seasoned. I immensely enjoyed it, and I highly recommend it!
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L. Masonson
4.0 out of 5 stars Beat the Market Using Strategies in This Book
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2023
Beating the market is always a challenging task, and very difficult to achieve on a consistent basis with bear markets always lurking behind the scene to disrupt the market uptrends. Consider that over a 20-year period 80 to 90% of active US mutual fund managers are unable to beat their benchmarks. Nevertheless, Ally Hall has come up with four strategy screens to do just that.

He presents four stock screening strategies based on quality, contrary value, dividends, and momentum that he found can be used to outpace the market. One chapter is devoted to each of these strategies with an introductory chapter on the building blocks required to create and interpret the screens. These strategies are all fundamentally rather than technically driven. He provides an introductory chapter on using screening tools which sets the stage for the strategy discussion thereafter. Each chapter is laid out in a similar manner indicating a 10-year chart of the strategy vs. the benchmark, the performance, the criteria, how it works, and adapting the screen. There also additional chapters providing useful background information on the subject matter of each strategy.

Let’s review one of the strategies. The momentum strategy returned 371% (total cumulative) compared to 109% on the FTSE 350 over a ten-year testing period which is an excellent result. This strategy uses price and earnings forecast momentum, each having four criteria. A line chart is provided showing the strategies performance vs. the FTSE from December 2011 through December 2021, but the volatility is apparent. Moreover, during the COVID pandemic the strategy’s drawn-down was 35% compared to the 54% for the FTSE 350. That is still a very high and uncomfortable drawdown to sit through.

Moreover, it would have been preferable to have the data include 2022, since this book was printed in May 2023. Also, a 20-year or more testing period would have provided a more reliable and definitive time period.

To provide more detail on the transactions for the strategies, four appendices are, provided listing the stocks for each strategy with their total return for each of the ten years of the study. That was very helpful and revealing. Sources for further reading and notes for each chapter, provide the reader with additional resources. Overall, the book was easy to read, the chapters were methodically developed, and the strategies provided a good starting point for interested investors to continue testing these strategies on longer and more current time periods.
2 people found this helpful
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Jeffrey L. Armbruster
1.0 out of 5 stars Nada
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2023
Verified Purchase
Won't help you become a better trader.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Alfred H.
4.0 out of 5 stars Screening
Reviewed in Germany on February 10, 2024
Verified Purchase
Mir hat von Eingang bis Ende alles gefalle
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adriano baratteri
5.0 out of 5 stars Ottimo!!!
Reviewed in Italy on July 6, 2023
Verified Purchase
Un libro che è molto di più che un semplice testo sugli stock screeners....
Rappresenta un viaggio sulle tecniche di maggior successo per battere il mercato.
Approfondisce le ragioni per le quali queste tecniche funzionano ed avverte dei rischi di ogni strategia....
Da leggere per intero, per poi approfondire la strategia più consona al nostro carattere di investitori ed alla nostra particolare avversione al rischio....Consigliato!!!
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Roger B
5.0 out of 5 stars A very good book covering much more than just stock screening
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 15, 2023
Verified Purchase
This is one of the best investment books I've read. It's well written and an easier read than many.

The stock screens are based on four investment strategies. Performance and the stock selections for each screen are given for the 10 year period Algy worked on them while he was writing for the Investor's Chronicle eg. the quality screen stocks grew by 422% (net of 1.5% pa assumed costs) over 10 years from August 2011 vs 120% for the FTSE All Share index. Unfortunately the period covered by the performance data ends before 2022 and so doesn’t include the impact of recent inflation and interest rate rises, the war in Ukraine or uncertainties caused by de-globalisation. Also the performance figures might be flattered by the period starting when markets were recovering from the Great Financial Crisis and when shares were available at bargain prices.

Four different investment strategies are described; how they work and how screens can be used to better understand and implement the strategies. This provides the background for choosing the best numbers to screen for shares suited to each strategy. Importantly Algy describes some of the potential pitfalls inherent with each of the four strategies. For example:

Quality investing grew in popularity over the decade the performance data covers. Valuations got very rich and as a result, small disappointments can trigger substantial drops in share prices.
Dividend paying companies tend to do less badly when markets fall but trail during bull markets.
Momentum can suffer a whipsaw in performance when there is a sudden reversal in a market trend the strategy had been riding.

The book describes how the accountancy treatment of intangibles is problematic and a major issue for stock screens. But Algy identifies some key numbers which are unaffected by the mismatching of intangible investment costs and benefits.

Also noted are cases where different ratios are better suited to certain situations. For example, comparing debt with total assets (gearing) is sensible for companies with a large asset base against which debt can be secured, such as property or utility companies. Whereas for companies requiring little investment to generate profits it’s probably better to compare debt with the amount of profit available to service it.

The value of tracking trends in ratios is also noted. For example, falling ROCE could indicate a business becoming lower quality whereas growth in gross margins could signal an improving competitive position. Rising net debt can indicate cash generation problems.

All in all a very good book covering much more than just stock screening.
8 people found this helpful
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Nigel
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 8, 2023
Verified Purchase
Very interesting book and lots of helpful tips
One person found this helpful
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