The value investing philosophy, which can be traced at least to the teaching of Graham and Dodd in the 1930's, entails identifying and investing in potentially under valued stocks with a potential for extraordinary returns. The focus of this thesis is to identify patterns and characteristics in financial accounting data preceding creation of shareholder value.
The authors of this thesis utilize a multivariate discriminant analysis in order to identify indicators of value creation and subsequent extraordinary returns in in value stocks. A discriminant function is derived which successfully identifies which value stocks will eventually become growth Stocks.