Graham · Buffett · Lynch · Fisher · Greenblatt
Five investor philosophies. One ranking tool.

Graham was the father of value investing. His central principle: the margin of safety — only buy when price is well below intrinsic value. He prioritised Price-to-Book below 1.5 as the primary entry criterion and used the PEG ratio to filter overpriced earnings. He rejected growth narratives and macro predictions; only hard numbers counted. He mentored Warren Buffett at Columbia Business School and authored The Intelligent Investor (1949).

Buffett evolved beyond Graham to seek wonderful companies at fair prices. His signals: high Return on Equity (ROE), which reveals durable business quality; and wide gross margins, which signal pricing power and a competitive moat. He also uses PEG to avoid overpaying for quality. He has held Coca-Cola since 1988. Charlie Munger shaped much of this philosophy.

The PEG ratio is P/E divided by the earnings growth rate. Lynch popularised it as the central metric of Growth at a Reasonable Price (GARP). A PEG below 1.0 suggests the market is undervaluing a company's growth; above 1.5, you may be overpaying. Lynch ran Fidelity Magellan 1977–1990, averaging 29.2% annual returns — one of the greatest records in mutual fund history. "Buy what you know" was his other key principle.

Fisher pioneered qualitative research in a world that only counted numbers. He sought exceptional revenue growth with durable margins and held companies for decades. He used "scuttlebutt" — interviewing competitors, suppliers and customers to understand a business from the outside. His 1958 book Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits influenced a generation of investors. Buffett calls himself "85% Graham, 15% Fisher" — and the 15% produced his biggest winners.

The Magic Formula ranks every company on two variables: return on capital (quality) and earnings yield (value). Buy the highest-ranked, hold a year, repeat. Back-tested over 30+ years with significant S&P 500 outperformance. Described in his 2005 book The Little Book That Beats the Market. It works, Greenblatt argues, precisely because it is boring enough that most investors abandon it before it pays off.

Each metric (PEG, ROE, P/B, gross margin, revenue growth, analyst upside, RSI, beta) is ranked 1–N across all companies in the active index. Each rank is multiplied by the active investor mode's weight for that field. The lowest total weighted score = rank #1. Rankings are always relative within the active index — rank 1 is the best in this group by this philosophy, not an absolute buy signal. This is not investment advice.

SageRanks is completely free. No account, no subscription, no login required. Prices update every 15 minutes during market hours. Fundamentals and analyst consensus refresh daily. Data is sourced from Yahoo Finance via the open-source yfinance library.