As a student, John Buckingham would borrow a 40-pound Compaq computer from the University of Southern California library and precariously prop it on his bike and ride it back to his dorm room. There, he would run quantitative models in hopes of finding a $500 investment that could quickly net $10,000. While that quest proved elusive, he found better investments at what is now value shop Al Frank Asset Management, where he landed a job after graduation. Al Frank, a self-taught value investor, schooled Buckingham in a much more lucrative philosophy: get wealthy slowly. Frank sought battered stocks with strong balance sheets and stuck with them for years... More