Joel Greenblatt
Gotham Asset Management
Profile & Investment Philosophy
Joel Greenblatt continues to deploy his systematic value strategy via Gotham Asset Management. In Q1 2026, the portfolio remained anchored by the S&P 500 (SPY) and the Gotham Enhanced 500 ETF (GSPY), while maintaining high-quality tech exposure in Apple and NVIDIA. Greenblatt's process-driven approach aims to extract alpha from the market's emotional cycles through rigorous quantitative screening.
Track Record
Joel Greenblatt ran Gotham Capital from 1985 to 1994 with a reported annualized return of roughly 50% gross before returning outside capital, one of the most aggressive records in modern investing. He then continued to compound personal and partner capital privately and later launched Gotham Asset Management with Robert Goldstein, running long-short and long-only strategies based on his quantitative value framework. Gotham Asset Management today manages billions of dollars across mutual funds and separate accounts. The Magic Formula methodology described in The Little Book That Beats the Market has been replicated and stress-tested extensively in academic literature.
Signature Trades
Current Strategy (2026)
Gotham Asset Management's 2026 13F is the opposite of Pabrai or Hohn: roughly 1700 holdings spread across the US market, with SPY itself at about 17.9% as the largest single line. The portfolio is effectively a quant value tilt around a core S&P 500 exposure, generated by Gotham's earnings-yield and return-on-capital ranking models. Position sizes are small, turnover is meaningful but disciplined, and the long book is paired with short exposure in the firm's hedge-fund vehicles. This is a deliberately industrialised version of the Magic Formula: thousands of small bets aggregating into a structural factor exposure, not the single high-conviction call style of the early Gotham era.
BMI Counter-Take
Greenblatt is two managers in one biography: the 50% gross compounder running concentrated spinoffs and derivatives until 1994, and the systematic factor manager running 1700-name portfolios today. The Magic Formula remains intellectually clean and academically validated, but its real edge has narrowed as quant value has been commoditised. We respect the durability and the willingness to publish the playbook, which most managers would never do. For retail the takeaway is not to copy SPY at 17.9%, it is to internalise the framework: rank by quality and price, ignore stories, and accept that a great system can lag the index for years.
Current Portfolio
LATEST 13F 2026-03-31Latest SEC Form 13F filing. Total portfolio value: $32.7 B. Holdings: 1749 positions.
| Security | Shares | Δ vs Prev | Value ($) | Portfolio % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State Str Spdr S&P 500 ETF T | 9.01 M | +33.87% | $5.86 B | 17.9 % |
| Apple Inc. | 2.87 M | +83.88% | $729 M | 2.23 % |
| Nvidia Corporation | 4.13 M | +39.95% | $721 M | 2.21 % |
| Tidal Trust I | 17.0 M | +1.51% | $601 M | 1.84 % |
| Ishares Tr | 435,384 | +6.79% | $284 M | 0.87 % |
| Vanguard Index Fds | 858,103 | +11.93% | $168 M | 0.52 % |
| Vanguard Index Fds | 276,774 | +53.26% | $165 M | 0.51 % |
| Amazon Com Inc. | 789,833 | -20.50% | $164 M | 0.50 % |
| Alphabet Inc. | 549,121 | +5.36% | $158 M | 0.48 % |
| Snowflake Inc. | 991,420 | +0.13% | $150 M | 0.46 % |
SOURCE: SEC Form 13F (2026-05-15). BMI Smart Money Tracker.