This, in Greenblatt’s world of value investors, counted as heresy. Old-fashioned value investors shunned options because options presumed an ability to time price movements in undervalued stocks. Greenblatt’s simple point: When the value of a stock so obviously turned on some upcoming event whose date was known (a merger date, for instance, or a court date), the value investor could in good conscience employ options to express his views. It gave Jamie an idea: Buy a long-term option to buy the stock of Capital One. “It was kind of like, Wow, we have a view: This common stock looks interesting.
