Investment Masters' Stock Picks: Value Investing Expert Featured

Liberty Times, in collaboration with Taiwan Economic News (TEJ), has launched a new financial channel called "Wealth Freedom." This initiative aims to simplify investment management for readers by featuring stock selection strategies from renowned Western investment masters, adapted for the Taiwanese stock market.

The inaugural expert highlighted is Charles Brandes, a distinguished value investing specialist and a former student of Benjamin Graham. Since founding Brandes Investment Partners in 1974, he has overseen the growth of assets under management from $130 million to over $75 billion. His Brandes Global Equity Fund achieved a 17.91% annualized return over twenty years, significantly outperforming the MSCI World Index and earning a five-star rating from Morningstar.

Brandes adheres strictly to the core principles of value investing, rejecting the use of future prediction data as a basis for stock selection. His philosophy centers on "margin of safety" and a company's true intrinsic value, with a preference for medium to long-term holding periods. To accurately replicate his investment approach, this research quantifies his ideas, employing net worth as a substitute for traditional discounted cash flow models.

The study has constructed a backtesting framework to evaluate the strategy's performance within historical market conditions. It aims to demonstrate the viability and robustness of Brandes' value investing principles within a quantitative framework. The research utilizes data from all listed and OTC companies on the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 2013, with a backtesting period from January 1, 2020, to April 21, 2025, focusing on sample data that meets the strategy's criteria to ensure rigorous testing.