Graham & Dodd in the NFL Draft

I read Michael Lewis's Moneyball way back when not because I was particularly interested in the Oakland Athletics but because it was recommended to me by a legendary investor, who deemed it, rightly, a management/investment book primarily, and only secondarily about baseball. The book essentially illustrates the "value investing" philosophy of Ben Graham and David Dodd applied to investments in baseball players rather than stocks. I am a devotee of the Gramham & Dodd school and happen to believe that it makes no less sense in building a sports team than in building a stock portfolio. Thus it makes happy, and keeps me ever optimistic, that my beloved New York Giants are devotees of the Graham & Dodd value investing approach. Great value investors exploit inefficiencies that can arise when the market unfairly devalues an asset for a superficial deficiency that it mistakes as more substantive. Here is a story about a Giant draft pick that may fit this theme. The heightened radioactivity of "character issues" may be the source of the inefficiency here, and the Giants' front office, like any good value investor, feel they have done the due diligence and found an undervalued asset. With Tiki gone, here's hoping they are right!

If you like this sort of thing, check out economist Kevin Hassett on the NFL draft.