Clear Thinking and Excellent Prose
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Clear and concise. No bloat or pretension. Yet covers loads of essential theory. Read it carefully and you will have a good solid foundation in asset allocation theory.
And not a nostrum. Bernstein does not promise the sky. He states candidly that implementing asset allocation is hard, and keeping the faith even harder. But the rewards are proven.
In a nutshell, read this book to understand asset allocation and indexing, and how they can free you from the endless cycle of financial pundit BS: I recommend fund X because it has shown top-drawer returns for the last two years, and manager Y is a genius, blah blah blah. Right. Like anybody can predict the future from the past. And in fact, Bernstein shows how and why top-performing funds have an alarming tendency to slip and become poor performers. If you have more than a few years investment experience you know in your bones that indexing is the sane alternative. Bernstein has the stats to prove it--as if you haven't already seen articles galore stating the same. This book has pushed me over the edge. Indexing, c'est moi... Allocated across the globe.
I intend to read Burton Malkiel next.
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The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio
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Bernstein has become a guru to a peculiarly '90s group: well-educated, Internet-powered people intent on investing well-and with minimal 'help' from professional Wall Street
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Outstanding all the way around
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I've read many investment books but this one is a cut above. Bernstein is a gifted author and lays a path for the reader to reduce investment risk while increasing investment returns though, what else, intelligent asset allocation. He covers the tradeoffs of mutual funds and stock picking but the real meat of the reading is the benefits of asset allocation (spreading your investments into classes that move independently of one another) and how one might implement such a strategy. He stops short of telling you which strategy but he does provide sufficient data for you to get started. Bernstein is a gifted writer and a powerful, logical presenter of what should be an easily managable financial strategy. It should be the only book you need on investing.
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Don't be scared
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When you pick up this book and look through it the graphs my scare you. Don't let your math phobia kick in. William Bernstein does a great job of walking you through each chapter. In fact at the end of one of the first chapters he tells you to put the book down for a few days and just digest the information. I would rate myself as at least an investor with moderate investing knowledge. I found this book helpful and the charts held validate the points Mr. Bernstein is making. I suspect I will refer to it often when I have a guestion about investing.
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A great book.
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I don't know why anyone would complain about the math used in this book. Apparently it posed a problem for some readers. What is investing but an elaborate application of math combined with money? In any case, the math was kept to a minimum and it touched on vital issues like Standard Deviate.
I have fully applied the principles in this book.
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