Book excerpt: Valuing and Investing in Equities: CROCI: Cash Return on Capital Investment develops a common-sense framework for value investors. By distinguishing investors from speculators, it acknowledges the variety of styles and goals in the financial markets. After explaining the intuition behind due diligence, portfolio construction, and stock picking, it shows the reader how to perform these steps and how to evaluate their results. Francesco Curto illuminates the costs and opportunities afforded by valuation strategies, inflation, and bubbles, emphasizing their effects on each other within the CROCI framework. Balancing analytics with an engaging clarity, the book neatly describes a comprehensive, time-tested approach to investing. Annual returns from this investment approach demand everyone's attention.