One phenomenon I find holds true in trading and investing is that some things that diehards think should not go together just work.

It’s a lesson I learned early. It came from my love of eating, which led to my love of cooking. Specifically, it was a batch of hot, gooey brownies followed by a swig of beer – and, believe it or not, howdelicious that odd combination turned out to be – that taught me to explore what the unexpected could do…

In this case, the unexpected combination that makes this strategy work so well pairs value investing with technical trading. This open-minded approach made my investing immensely more profitable because it turned me on to a “trick” that got me 70% fewer losing trades…

And I’m sure anyone who tries this trick – even dyed-in-the-wool value investors – is going to be delighted with their returns, too…

Improving on the Work of Graham and Buffett

Two of the most important names for value investors are Benjamin Graham and Warren Buffett.

Benjamin Graham is considered the “father of value investing.” When he passed away in 1976, after a long and wildly successful investing career, his protégé Warren Buffett continued in his footsteps, digging deep into the data to find undervalued stocks – as all value investors do.

Graham and Buffett both laid out many ways for value investors to find those companies that are great values.

For instance, they can use the “margin of safety,” or the amount a company trades below its intrinsic value.
And then there’s “Graham’s Number,” which is the concept of subtracting a company’s total liabilities from their current assets and then dividing that number by the the shares outstanding. Graham himself looked for stocks where the price was 66% of the Graham’s Number – a deep value.
Later on, Buffett put his own spin on Graham’s teaching. He looked only at the raw balance sheet and income statement numbers, and had a good feel for less easily measured characteristics like competitive advantage and management strength.