Tobias Carlisle's "The Acquirer's Multiple" explores strategies for outperforming the stock market by adopting a contrarian "zig" approach, buying undervalued assets when the crowd "zags."

The book advocates for deep-value investing, emphasizing the importance of mean reversion, where struggling businesses and stock prices tend to recover.

It examines the investment philosophies of value investing giants like Warren Buffett and Carl Icahn, contrasting Buffett's preference for "wonderful companies at fair prices" with strategies focusing on "fair companies at wonderful prices."

Carlisle introduces the Acquirer's Multiple as a key metric for identifying undervalued companies and presents simulation results comparing its effectiveness against other investment approaches like Joel Greenblatt's "Magic Formula."

Ultimately, the book provides a framework for identifying and investing in deeply undervalued stocks with a margin of safety, aiming for long-term, market-beating returns by thinking differently from the consensus.