A firm dominates a specific geographic region or niche product line. A competitor cannot enter profitably because they cannot achieve the necessary market share to match the incumbent's low unit costs.

For years, students at Columbia Business School—the very birthplace of value investing—have clung to a specific set of course notes and a seminal textbook. That textbook is Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond , and the quest for the has become a modern rite of passage for self-taught investors.

: To find true "distributable cash flow," Greenwald adjusts reported earnings. He adds back one-time charges, normalizes cyclical earnings, and removes "growth capex," leaving only the "maintenance capex" required to keep the business operating at its current size.