About the Author
This very easy to digest book was written by Glenn Martin for the purpose of helping private investors their investment decisions more viable. Glenn himself started his career in the City of London and for over 34 years worked at various financial institutions. He has worked in retail banking and most other banking sectors. Latterly he worked as Chief Information Officer for investment banks and was rewarded for his fine work by the financial services industry. In 2003 he was nominated for best personal contribution in the Financial New Awards for IT Excellence in Investment Banking. While in 2004 he won the Banking Technology Award for the best IT Operational Achievement. In 1994 Glenn created a system for calculating the intrinsic value of the FTSE 100 Index and individual shares. In 2004 Glenn decided to establish a company called ShareMaestro to promote the system he had developed when he saw that it was viable and reliable.
Valuing Shares
This book is well written and in a language which is easy for the layman to understand as well as those who already have had experience in investing in the stock market. For the newbie investor the concept of valuing shares and investing for oneself is explained in a very persuasive language. For the investor who already invests in the stock market the book provides assistance in areas that they might have ignored up to now.
The whole premise of the book is that it is possible to value shares in such a way that it is feasible to identify whether a share is undervalued or overvalued. The author rightly claims that the old adage that an investor should buy and sell low is not useful investment advice as until you actually own a share you don't know whether the share you bought was over valued or under valued. Only when the share price moves do you know if you have really bought high. The investment advice given in the book is all about buying cheaply and selling dearly and the author concisely explains how an investor can calculate the real current value of the market as well as of individual shares. These values are compared to the current market value which enables a decision to be made as to whether the shares are worth investing in. The author explains why he believes the traditional ways of identifying cheap shares is inaccurate and then goes on to explain the system which he himself has developed to value shares.
Value Investing
The book is written in a style which is easy to follow for the man in the street and has enough of a glossary that the new investor will have no problem in follow the author's thesis. The author believes that investors should manage their own investments and starts out by explaining very persuasively why this is important. The book then goes on to lay the groundwork for the explanation of the authors system by explaining value investing and also other approaches to investing such as technical analysis and fundamental analysis. Once this foundation has been laid the author then goes on to explain in detail the various aspects of his system. The system is based on a software program called ShareMaestro which can be found on line at www.sharemaestro.co.uk. The software itself can be downloaded and the private investor can then take a 30 day free trial. ShareMaestro uses an exclusive proprietary system for share valuation and follows years of research on how the markets and economic forces react on each other.
Based on the premise that few shares trade at fair value and typically around 80% of shares are at least 10% overpriced or underpriced, ShareMaestro helps you to sort the wood from the trees and to pinpoint great profit opportunities. ShareMaestro produces a current intrinsic share value and expresses this as a % of the current market price. The greater the gap between the % valuation and 100% (fair value), the stronger is the buy or sell signal. The intrinsic ShareMaestro value of the share, is expressed as % of its current price. A higher value than 100% indicates that, according to the ShareMaestro valuation from the input values, the current market price undervalues the Share. Correspondingly a lower value than 100% indicates that, according to the ShareMaestro valuation from the input values, the current market price overvalues the Share.
ShareMaestro clients have access to an exclusive data file which produces automated valuations of shares in the FTSE All-Share Index and also a current valuation of the FTSE 100 index. It is easy to use and there is a user manual which is downloadable for free. The software also has a facility to export single and bulk valuation results to Excel.
The book gives private investors the tools necessary to make the measured and informed decisions which will enable them to make effective and profitable long term investments.
This is a must have manual for serious private investors whether they are seasoned investors or they are newbie investors
