Kurt Kara, head of value equities at Copenhagen-based Maj Invest, considers reading brokerage research and meeting company CEOs a waste of time, according to a recent Bloomberg article, and the approach has led to a 16 percent average return in the Maj Invest Value Aktier fund over the last five years.

“The best research,” says Kara, “is the one you generate internally. We want to create our own mindset, logic and reasoning.” He and his team, the article says, use an investment process that includes the scoring of 6,000 to 7,000 stocks globally based on about 150 metrics. “What comes out on top is then culled based on the probability of accounting fraud, internal rate of return and the efficiency of the CEO.”

Kara says, “We combine our knowledge with the machine’s knowledge. That’s a better approach than just filtering stocks using screens and just buying cheaply because we’re value investors.”