Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment Features

Additional Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment Information

In Unconventional Success, investment legend David F. Swensen offers incontrovertible evidence that the for-profit mutual-fund industry consistently fails the average investor. From excessive management fees to the frequent "churning" of portfolios, the relentless pursuit of profits by mutual-fund management companies harms individual clients. Perhaps most destructive of all are the hidden schemes that limit investor choice and reduce returns, including "pay-to-play" product-placement fees, stale-price trading scams, soft-dollar kickbacks, and 12b-1 distribution charges.

Even if investors manage to emerge unscathed from an encounter with the profit-seeking mutual-fund industry, individuals face the likelihood of self-inflicted pain. The common practice of selling losers and buying winners (and doing both too often) damages portfolio returns and increases tax liabilities, delivering a one-two punch to investor aspirations.

In short: Nearly insurmountable hurdles confront ordinary investors.

Swensen's solution? A contrarian investment alternative that promotes well-diversified, equity-oriented, "market-mimicking" portfolios that reward investors who exhibit the courage to stay the course. Swensen suggests implementing his nonconformist proposal with investor-friendly, not-for-profit investment companies such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. By avoiding actively managed funds and employing client-oriented mutual-fund managers, investors create the preconditions for investment success.

Bottom line? Unconventional Success provides the guidance and financial know-how for improving the personal investor's financial future.

What Customers Say About Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment:

I'm a huge fan of this book, and I follow the outlined plan for my retirement investing.If you're like me, you'll want to know that in the March/April issue of Yale Alumni Magazine, Swensen suggests that economic conditions might call for a modest revision. He recommends that investors have 15 percent of their assets in real estate investment trusts, and raise their investment in emerging-market stock funds to 10 percent.

Really great book. Will seriously save you thousands (if not tens of thousands) of dollars over a lifetime of investing. I just doesn't make sense to give up 1% or more in investment fees each year for no expected benefit. Well written book too.

Swensen does a great job covering two topics - Asset Allocation and the pitfalls of security selection.

The advice in this book came just in time for me. I sure was right that something bad was going on, huh. Seriously. I read it then I moved my dough out of Merrill the very week in 2006 that they announced record earnings. I'll never use a manager again.Thanks to my firing the manager and following the plan described on a single page near the front of this book I was diversified when the current crisis hit us all. Makes me angry to think about what could have happened.As far as I know, not one person to whom I've recommended this book to has cared to read it, they're all still in the matrix.

I have been investing in mutual funds for 30 years without making money. Then describes how to build and manage a portfolio consisting of those assets. Now I know why and know what to do about it.The book is divided into three sections:Asset Alocation, Market Timing and Security Selection.In the "Asset Alocation" section David Swensen clearly describes each of the core assets that he recommends for a diversified investment portfolio for those of us who don't have a staff of investment analysts. He describes the risks, how the forces that move each asset's price aligns with or conflicts with the interests of the individual investor and the market charateristis of the asset. The book also covers a long list of non-core assets that he does not recommend and why.In the "Market Timeing" section he describes the reasons why most individual investors fail by listening to the news, reading marketing material and getting advice from those with theirown adjenda.If you want to know why you haven't been able to make money investing in Mutual Funds, read the third section "Security Selection".This book was written before the market crash of 2008 and investors following the advice would have lost money. But those that understand the material would have a plan and would be able to recover and profit.I also recommend Unexpected Returns: Understanding Secular Stock Market Cycles for those who want to carefully add some market timeing and Spend 'Til the End: The Revolutionary Guide to Raising Your Living Standard--Today and When You Retireto layout a lifetime financial plan for retirement.