Below are some books on investing that I find insightful. If you are just starting out, the first two books that I would read are The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by John Bogle and Winning the Loser’s Game: Timeless Strategies for Successful Investing by Charles Ellis. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: the Best Investment Books & Online Resources
The purpose of rebalancing your portfolio is not necessarily to increase returns. Rather, it is to remain consistent with your preferred asset allocation and thereby reduce the riskiness of your portfolio. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Rebalancing Your Portfolio
More advanced investors can optimize their portfolio, seeking the “most efficient” portfolio for their particular risk tolerance. “Most efficient”, means: no other feasible portfolio with equal risk has greater expected returns, and no other feasible portfolio with less risk has equal returns. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Factor Investing
The central challenge to long-term investing is not how to increase returns; instead, it is how to manage risk. The solution is to construct a diversified portfolio tailored to your particular risk tolerance. Overall, it is key that you understand how your portfolio behaves during changing market and economic conditions so that you can stick with your desired asset allocation. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Asset Allocation & Building a Diversified Portfolio
For individual investors, non-core asset classes fail at least one of David Swenson’s rules. There are a number of fixed income investments that serve no valuable portfolio role for almost any investor. And, there are a number of actively managed asset classes that are only suitable for extremely sophisticated institutional investors, capable of investing in illiquid markets and possessing very long time horizons. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Asset Classes That Individual Investors Should Avoid
In order to build a diversified portfolio, you must first select asset classes that have minimal correlation with one another. David Swenson, the Chief Investment Officer at Yale University, presents one of the best overviews of core and non-core asset classes for individual investors in Unconventional Success: a Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment. Here, we will focus on core asset classes. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Core Asset Classes
It is nearly impossible for active managers to beat the market over the long term after taking management expenses, transaction fees, taxes, and risk into account. Individual investors don’t have the time or resources to compete with institutional investors. The only rational path for individual investors is to invest in passively managed index funds. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Actively Managed Investing
But in the long run, whether for an individual stock or the total stock market, the market return must equal the investment return. Speculative return becomes statistical noise. Basic economics governs. Therefore, you do not need to forecast the speculative return; you only need to compute investment return. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Return
Risk and reward are inextricably intertwined. In the long run, you are compensated for risk. But, don’t expect higher returns without higher risk. And don’t expect safety without correspondingly lower returns. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Risk
What is most important is not the dollar amount but the purchasing power of the money that you save. In other words, what your savings will buy when you retire. Expect inflation to destroy the purchasing power of your savings almost as fast as you build wealth, depending on your asset allocation. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Compounding, Inflation & Real Returns
Your first goal is to not spend more than you earn. In particular, do not carry credit card debt month to month. There is no point in trying to figure out how to maximize return for a given level of risk if you are in debt beyond your home mortgage (~4%) and low interest (1-2%) car loans. The reason for this is that you likely are spending more on interest for your loans and, particularly, credit card debt than you ever would recoup by investing an equivalent amount minus fees, taxes, and your high interest debt. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Building Your Net Worth by Budgeting, Saving & Investing
I began writing this book after several family members asked me for my perspective about investing for retirement. I shared a number of links to dense financial books and online financial management sites. For some reason, they didn’t have the time or inclination to read several bookshelves of books on investing. Instead, they asked me to distill all that information into something more straightforward. This book addresses investing for the typical individual investor. The information herein reflects the financial and investment knowledge that I believe everyone should possess. Continue reading Investing for Retirement: Overview
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