Search Results for: bernstein book

Bill Bernstein Interview: New Edition of The Four Pillars of Investing Book

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“The Long View” by Mornginstar is an excellent podcast for DIY investors with a long-term perspective. Their recent episode Bill Bernstein: Revisiting ‘The Four Pillars of Investing’ had on Dr. Bernstein to help promote his newly-updated The Four Pillars of Investing, Second Edition*. I haven’t read the new edition yet, but the podcast alone was full of useful evidence and unique nuggets.

(* I found it amusing that Amazon was advertising a book titled “Learn Proven Day Trading Strategies” on the same page. What an oxymoron! I seriously worry about new investors finding the good stuff amongst all this noise.)

I recommend listening or reading the handy podcast transcript, but here are my top takeaways and highlights.

Don’t interrupt compounding. Have enough safe assets to make it through the next crisis, which will inevitably arrive sooner or later.

[…] yes, compounding is magic, but you have to observe Charlie Munger’s prime directive of compounding, which is never to interrupt it. So, you have to design your portfolio not with the normal 98% of the world and 90% of the time in mind. You have to design your portfolio with the worst 2% of the time in mind so that you don’t interrupt compounding, which basically translated into plain English means that you probably should have more safe assets than you think you should have. In other words, a suboptimal portfolio that you can execute is better than a stock-heavy optimal one that you cannot execute.

Why you may prefer to own Treasury bonds over Corporate bonds, even if the latter has a slightly higher average return.

[…] it’s not just that you have the risk of bad returns, it’s bad returns in bad times. And that’s the problem with corporate bonds, is when corporate bonds do poorly, they do poorly at the worst possible time.

[… the] 0.8% or 0.6% returns premium you get over Treasuries from high-grade corporate bonds just isn’t worth it.

Have realistic expectations if you tilt to factors like size, value, quality, and so forth.

I think that in finance, even the best bets you make are at best 60/40, most of the time they’re closer to 51/49. So, you just have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re going to be wrong a large part of the time in exchange for being right most of the time. And even then, the margin isn’t going to be that much.

How to protect your portfolio against inflation.

Well, for starters, you keep your bond duration short so that when rates rise, you can roll them over at the higher rate. And stocks, although stocks don’t do well initially with inflation, what you see is that over the very, very, long term, they do.

The hazards of backtesting. Whatever has performed well mostly recently will overwhelm the results.

What happened back in the 1970s and ‘80s and ‘90s is people fell in love with mean-variance optimization, the Markowitz algorithm. It looked like all you had to do was collect asset-class returns and standard deviations and the correlation grid, which is the inputs to the Markowitz algorithm. And you could predict the future-efficient frontier, that is the allocation that gave you the most amount of return for a given degree of risk or for a given degree of return that stopped you with the lowest degree of volatility. And it turns out that the inputs to that produce enormous changes in the outputs and that the algorithm, if you’re going to use historical returns, then favors the asset classes with the highest returns.

Why not 100% stocks for young folks?

There is a wonderful quote from Fred Schwed’s marvelous book, Where Are the Customers’ Yachts?

“There are certain things that cannot be adequately explained to a virgin, either by words or pictures, nor can any description I might offer here even approximate what it feels like to lose a real chunk of money that you used to own. If you’re a young investor, you’re an investment virgin, you’ve never lost a real chunk of money, and you have no idea how you’re actually going to respond to stocks falling by 30% or 50%.”

Asset allocation for early retirees:

Someone who is a FIRE person—financial independence, retire early—and wants to retire at age 40, better have a fairly aggressive allocation with a very low burn rate.

Not a fan of lifetime income via annuities. First, they are greatly exposed to inflation risk. Second, they are exposed to credit risk (insurance company failure). He is skeptical about the state guaranty system.

These are all commercial products and people are very fond of pointing out, yes, these products have state guarantees, but of course, they’re funded by the insurance industry. There is nothing magic about a state guarantee. Most states have fairly low caps on the amount that is protected. And then, finally, even those guarantees can fail. And if you don’t think that that can happen, you should go Google “Executive Life Insurance.”

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Kindle Unlimited eBooks: Free 3-Month Trial for Prime Members

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Amazon is offering Prime members a free 3-month trial of Kindle Unlimited. (Prime Day is coming up in mid-July.) This offer appears to be widely available to Prime members unless you’ve had a trial recently in the last year or so.

  • Enjoy unlimited access to over 1 million books.
  • Explore a rotating selection of popular magazines.
  • Listen to thousands of books with Audible narration.
  • Read anytime, on any device with the Kindle app.

(Note that I am an Amazon affiliate and Amazon doesn’t let me put links in e-mails, so you may have to visit the original post to see all the links. Thank you.)

You should be able to manually cancel your Kindle Unlimited membership early and it will let you keep your membership open until the end of the trial period, and not renew automatically. If you don’t do anything, it will auto-renew at the end of trial period at $11.99 per month. Remember that after you end your Kindle Unlimited subscription, you will lose access to all of the Kindle Unlimited books.

What personal finance and investing books are included? You can view all Kindle Unlimited books here. You can search Kindle Unlimited titles here after clicking the “Kindle Unlimited Eligible” box on the top-left. There are is a mix of a few bestsellers, some older classics, and a lot of independently-published titles of varying quality. Here are some business and finance-related titles that caught my eye:

Kindle Unlimited authors get paid per page that is read. Therefore, your reading actually pays authors for their work!

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


William Bernstein Interview #2: No Individual Stocks, Improved Safe Withdrawal Rate Outlook

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Dr. William Bernstein is continuing his press tour for the second edition of his classic investing book The Four Pillars of Investing, and I found myself listening/reading to another podcast from The Meb Faber Show: Bill Bernstein on Financial History, Star Managers & The 4 Pillars of Investing.

There was some overlap between his discussion points here and the Morningstar podcast, but it was definitely worth the time spent to get a few more interesting discoveries.

He owns zero individuals stocks. I’m pretty impressed by the discipline level of this. No vestigial stock shares from his youth, no sentimental holdings, not even a humblebrag holding. (“Well, I do have a few shares of Apple that I picked up during the IPO in 1980…”)

Meb Faber: Does Dr. Bernstein have a play account? Do you allow yourself to have some investments you’ll trade around a little bit or are you too strict for that?

Dr. Bernstein: No. For two reasons, number one is, I learned my lesson early on just like you did. And, number two, I also am a co-principal in an IRA firm, and I just don’t want to be dealing with trading individual stocks.

He thinks that safe withdrawal rates are improving.

I am reasonably optimistic, as optimistic as I’ve actually been in 15 or 20 years about securities returns in about people’s ability to spend. What we told people until relatively recently was if you’re a typical 65-year-old retiree, a 2% burn rate is bulletproof, 3% is probably safe, 4%, you’re probably taking some risk, and at 5% burn rate, you’re taking a real risk. And I think that given the increase in real bond rates and the general decrease in valuations almost everywhere in the world except in the U.S. and especially with U.S. large cap stocks, I think that expected returns have increased to the point that you can increase those burn rates by about a percent. And that may not sound like very much, but going from 2% to 3% gives you 50% more spending power each and every year. So, I’m reasonably optimistic about future security returns, both for people who are going to be putting money away, and people who are going to be spending as well, assuming they didn’t get too badly clobbered in 2022.

Adding in that additional percentage point would change the quote to “if you’re a typical 65-year-old retiree, a 3% burn rate is bulletproof, 4% is probably safe, 5%, you’re probably taking some risk, and at 6% burn rate, you’re taking a real risk.” That is a big change, as he says.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Amazon Prime: Spend $20 on eBooks, Get $5 eBook Credit

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Amazon has a new promotion for Prime members: Spend $20 on Kindle eBooks, get $5 eBook credit.. You must activate at the link and spend $20 on any eBooks by October 12th, 2020.

Here are (again) my recommended books about early retirement and financial freedom:

Here are all my book reviews in reverse-chronological order.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Amazon Coupon Code: $5 off $20+ of Print Books

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Amazon has a $5 off $20+ of print book purchases with promo code GIFTBOOK18. Can be one book or multiple. Offer expires at 11:59pm Pacific on December 21, 2018. Must be sold by Amazon.com. Here are some newer books that are on my to-read list. I’m on somewhat of a memoir kick.

Here are my standard suggestions for those looking to gift a financially-related book:

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Groupon: Free 60-Day Kindle Unlimited Membership w/ Finance Book List

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

grpn_ku

Groupon is offering a Free 60-Day membership to Kindle Unlimited. You must not have had been a KU subscriber within the last 12 months. A Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscription usually costs $9.99 a month and includes free access to a special library of over 1 million eBooks, thousands of audiobook narrations, and current issues of various magazines. As with Netflix, when the membership ends, your ability to read the books end as well.

After making the purchase, you must “view” the voucher and redeem the unique code here. Note that you must link a credit card and they will charge you $9.99 a month after the initial 60 days by default. To prevent this, you can visit here and cancel the auto-renewal. It will says something like “Your benefits will continue until January 6, 2018, after which your card will not be charged and your membership will end.”

What books are included? You can view all Kindle Unlimited books here. You can search Kindle Unlimited titles here after clicking the “Kindle Unlimited Eligible” box on the top-left. There are is a mix of a few bestsellers, some older classics, and a lot of independently-published titles of varying quality. Here are some finance-related titles that caught my eye:

Kindle Unlimited authors get paid per page that is read. Therefore, your reading can support their efforts.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Book Review: Money for Something – A Free Investing Primer

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

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There is always a demand for starter books on investing and personal finance, especially as graduation season is coming up again. Although they often cover similar topics, the execution varies widely. For example, I found Tony Robbin’s “7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom” to be dense, unfocused, and it somehow ended up suggesting a complicated insurance product. Blech.

This is why I found it refreshing to read Money for Something – A Handy Field Guide for Turning Small Investments into Financial Freedom by Matt Henderson. This starter book was short, focused, and practical:

  • Short – The book consists of 17 brief chapters. In roughly the time it takes to read 17 of my blog posts, you can finish this book.
  • Focused – The world of investing is wide and deep, which makes it very tempting to explore every nuance. This book keeps the supporting material very tight.
  • Practical – The same holds true for the actual implementation of his plan. For examples, he gives you two options for model portfolios, he tells you where you can buy them, and that’s just enough to get you started.

Henderson has an engineering background and says the book is based on his own experiences. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:

Hoping not to rely on luck, I began reading books about personal investment. What I discovered was very exciting—that practically anyone can achieve financial freedom.

I put the principles I learned into practice, and over the next 15 years confirmed that they work. It seems profoundly important that the path to financial freedom is so accessible—just by following a set of basic principles with discipline. At the same time, it seems profoundly sad that so many never find it, simply because they are unaware.

In terms of criticisms, it would be the same as with any starter investment book. Readers should take it as a rough roadmap, something motivational that shows a way to get from here (starting out) to there (financial freedom). But actually following the map will take many years, and there will be many distractions and moments that question your faith along the way. In my experience, you will need to keep learning in order to build up the required confidence in your (probably somewhat different) plan. It’s not that the original plan wasn’t good, more that you need something that you truly believe in. Don’t let that scare you off though, because the payoff is worth it!

This may also help… Money for Something is now available for free to read online, $5 in PDF format, and also available for purchase in Kindle format.

Recap. Concise and practical starter investing book. If you need a short roadmap, I recommend reading this book and doing additional research as needed. It’s free to read online, so that’s one less excuse!

Related: Another recommended starter book on personal finance is If You Can by William Bernstein, which is also free in PDF format and about $6 in paperpack. You can use the included recommended reading list for additional research.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Amazon.com: Extra 25% Off Another Print Book

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

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New code so you can get 25% off again. Good through 12/13 Midnight Pacific. Take an extra 25% off any book at Amazon.com with promo code 25OFFBOOK. Print books only, max $10 off, must by sold and shipped by Amazon.com. Valid until December 14, 2015 at 02:59am EST. This is a different code than the previous 30% off and 25% off coupons, so you can use it again.

Stack with your $15 off $60 at Amazon from American Express, 10% off Amazon from Chase Freedom, and 5% off Amazon from Discover (10% with Double Promotion).

Here are some recommendations for those looking to give or receive some financial inspiration:

Here are all my book reviews in reverse-chronological order.

My favorite book of 2014 was Dinner A Love Story. It has some inspirational material to help you cook for yourself and your family, along with the best compilation of weeknight dinner recipes I’ve read in a cookbook. They taste special enough (not bland or boring), but they also take 30 minutes. I still use it to this day.

My favorite book of 2015… I looked back at my book reviews and didn’t really have a strong favorite. I would say one trend is that I have become a fan of re-reading Vanguard founder Jack Bogle’s classic books. His old stuff has a lot of common sense reasoning that doesn’t always fit with today’s “one-size-fits-all” advice.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


William Bernstein: Picking The Right Bonds For Your Portfolio

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

pie_flat_blank_200Author and investment advisor William Bernstein wrote a thoughtful WSJ piece on bonds, which I think is useful for the DIY investor. The overall theme is that you should take minimal risks with the bonds in your portfolio. Taken in isolation, some types of bonds are likely to provide higher long-term returns than others. However, you should consider how they fit into your entire portfolio. Historically, it has been more efficient to take your risk with stocks and use your bonds for their stability. Bonds become the “dry powder” you can use to buy more stocks after a crash (rebalance!).

I found myself breaking down the article into three main categories. The types of bonds he recommends most, the ones he considers acceptable, and the rest which should be avoided. These are my short notes; read the article for the supporting arguments.

PREFER

  • Individual US Treasury bonds, manually laddered.
  • US Treasury bond mutual funds, for smaller balances.
  • Top-yielding FDIC-Insured Certificates of Deposit, manually laddered.
  • Short-term or intermediate-term, higher-quality municipal-bond funds, for large taxable balances.

OKAY

  • “Total bond index” mutual funds, as they consist mainly of high-grade, government-backed bonds.
  • US Treasury bond mutual funds for larger balances.

AVOID

  • All corporate bonds, but especially avoid lower-grade and/or longer-term corporate bonds.
  • Lower-grade and/or longer-term municipal bonds.

I would point out that inflation-protected bonds (TIPs) are not mentioned directly, I guess because they aren’t directly comparable to these nominal bonds. Either that, or he just considered them to be the same as traditional Treasuries. He talks about TIPs a lot elsewhere (including his books), so a little specific advice would have been helpful.

My other opinion is that running your own bond ladder is quite doable but only the most DIY of DIY investors would do it better than a low-cost bond fund. I own individual TIPS and it’s not hard but not a ton of fun either to keep track of auction dates and avoid cash drag. Vanguard charges only 0.12% annually for their short-term government bond ETF (VGSH) and Admiral fund equivalent. $12 a year per $10,000. $120 a year for $100,000. I’d rather just pay that unless I had millions or I had a lot more free time. However, if you’re already paying a financial advisor, I would let them manage an individual bond ladder as part of their fee.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Global Asset Allocation Book Review: Comparing 12+ Expert Model Portfolios

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

gaafaberI am a regular reader of Meb Faber’s online writings, and volunteered to received a free review copy of his new book Global Asset Allocation: A Survey of the World’s Top Asset Allocation Strategies. It is a rather short book and would probably be around 100 pages if printed, but it condensed a lot of information into that small package.

First off, you are shown how any individual asset class contains its own risks, from cash to stocks. The only “free lunch” out there is diversification, meaning that you should hold a portfolio of different, non-correlated asset classes. For the purposes of this book, the major asset classes are broken down into:

  • US Large Cap Stocks
  • US Small Cap Stocks
  • Foreign Developed Markets Stocks
  • Foreign Emerging Markets Stocks
  • US Corporate Bonds
  • US T-Bills
  • US 10-Year Treasury Bonds
  • US 30-Year Treasury Bonds
  • 10-Year Foreign Gov’t Bonds
  • TIPS (US Inflation-linked Treasuries)
  • Commodities (GSCI)
  • Gold (GFD)
  • REITs (NAREIT)

So, what mix of these “ingredients” is best? Faber discusses and compares model asset allocations from various experts and sources. I will only include the name and brief description below, but the book expands on the portfolios a little more. Don’t expect a comprehensive review of each model and its underpinnings, however.

  • Classic 60/40 – the benchmark portfolio, 60% stocks (S&P 500) and 40% bonds (10-year US Treasuries).
  • Global 60/40 – stocks split 50/50 US/foreign, bonds also split 50/50 US/foreign.
  • Ray Dalio All Seasons – proposed by well-known hedge fund manager in Master The Money Game book.
  • Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio – 25% stocks/25% cash/25% Long-term Treasuries/25% Gold.
  • Global Market Portfolio – Based on the estimated market-weighted composition of asset classes worldwide.
  • Rob Arnott Portfolio – Well-known proponent of fundamental indexing and “smart beta”.
  • Marc Faber Portfolio – Author of the “Gloom, Boom, and Doom” newsletter.
  • David Swensen Portfolio – Yale Endowment manager, from his book Unconventional Success.
  • Mohamad El-Erian Portfolio – Former Harvard Endowment manager, from his book When Markets Collide.
  • Warren Buffett Portfolio – As directed to Buffett’s trust for his wife’s benefit upon his passing.
  • Andrew Tobias Portfolio – 1/3rd each of: US Large, Foreign Developed, US 10-Year Treasuries.
  • Talmud Portfolio – “Let every man divide his money into three parts, and invest a third in land, a third in business and a third let him keep by him in reserve.”
  • 7Twelve Portfolio – From the book 7Twelve by Craig Israelsen.
  • William Bernstein Portfolio – From his book The Intelligent Asset Allocator.
  • Larry Swedroe Portfolio – Specifically, his “Eliminate Fat Tails” portfolio.

Faber collected and calculated the average annualized returns, volatility, Sharpe ratio, and Max Drawdown percentage (peak-to-trough drop in value) of all these model asset allocations from 1973-2013. So what were his conclusions? Here some excerpts from the book:

If you exclude the Permanent Portfolio, all of the allocations are within one percentage point.

What if someone was able to predict the best-performing strategy in 1973 and then decided to implement it via the average mutual fund? We also looked at the effect if someone decided to use a financial advisor who then invested client assets in the average mutual fund. Predicting the best asset allocation, but implementing it via the average mutual fund would push returns down to roughly even with the Permanent Portfolio. If you added advisory fees on top of that, it had the effect of transforming the BEST performing asset allocation into lower than the WORST.

Think about that for a second. Fees are far more important than your asset allocation decision! Now what do you spend most of your time thinking about? Probably the asset allocation decision and not fees! This is the main point we are trying to drive home in this book – if you are going to allocate to a buy and hold portfolio you want to be paying as little as possible in total fees and costs.

So after collecting the best strategies from the smartest gurus out there, all with very different allocations, the difference in past performance between the 12+ portfolios was less than 1% a year (besides the permanent portfolio, which had performance roughly another 1% lower but also the smallest max drawdown). Now, there were some differences in Sharpe ratio, volatility, and max drawdown which was addressed a little but wasn’t explored in much detail. There was no “winner” that was crowned, but for the curious the Arnott portfolio had the highest Sharpe ratio by a little bit and the Permanent portfolio had the smallest max drawdown by a little bit.

Instead of trying to predict future performance, it would appear much more reliable to focus on fees and taxes. I would also add that all of these portfolio backtests looked pretty good, but they were all theoretical returns based on strict application of the model asset allocation. If you are going to use a buy-and-hold portfolio and get these sort of returns, you have to keep buying and keep holding through both the good times and bad.

Although I don’t believe it is explicitly mentioned in this book, Faber’s company has a new ETF that just happens to help you do these things. The Cambria Global Asset Allocation ETF (GAA) is an “all-in-one” ETF that includes 29 underlying funds with an approximate allocation of 40% stocks, 40% bonds, and 20% real assets. The total expense ratio is 0.29% which includes the expenses of the underlying funds with no separate management fee. The ETF holdings have a big chunk of various Vanguard index funds, but it also holds about 9% in Cambria ETFs managed by Faber.

Since it is an all-in-one fund, theoretically you can’t fiddle around with the asset allocation. That’s pretty much how automated advisors like Wealthfront and Betterment work as well. If you have more money to invest, you just hand it over and it will be invested for you, including regular rebalancing. The same idea has also been around for a while through the under-rated Vanguard Target Retirement Funds, which are also all-in-one but stick with simplicity rather than trying to capture possible higher returns though value, momentum, and real asset strategies. The Vanguard Target funds are cheaper though, at around 0.18% expense ratio.

Well, my portfolio already very low in costs. So my own takeaway is that I should… do nothing! 🙂

Alpha Architect also has a review of this book.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Kindle Unlimited Review: Personal Finance and Investing Books

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kindleu2Amazon has just announced Amazon Unlimited, an eBook and audiobook subscription service that costs $9.99 a month (30-day free trial) and not included in Amazon Prime. They claim over 600,000 titles in their library, although that number is padded by a lot of little-known self-published eBooks. “Thousands” of those books come with free audiobook versions. You can read unlimited books (max 10 out at once) and on any Kindle app (Windows, Mac, web browser, iPhone/iPad, Android, etc).

It’s a library card with 24/7 instant availability, but how well-stocked is this virtual library?

My personal reading habits include mainly business, personal improvement, and finance books. I compiled a list of notable books that I have read or want to read first, and then checked if Amazon Unlimited had it. I’m also including the findings from my Oyster review (a competing eBook app) for comparison purposes.

Book Oyster.com Amazon Unlimited
William Bernstein’s Recommended Reading List for Young Investors
The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy by Thomas Stanley and William Danko. Yes No
Common Sense on Mutual Funds by Jack Bogle. Yes No
Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation by Edward Chancellor. No No
The Great Depression: A Diary by Benjamin Roth. Yes No
Your Money and Your Brain by Jason Zweig. Yes No
How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street by Allan Roth. Yes No
All About Asset Allocation by Rick Ferri. No No
5 Recent Bestsellers
Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis. No Yes
Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry by Helaine Olen. No No
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. No No
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty. No Yes
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. No No
5 Personal Favorite Financial Books
Your Money or Your Life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. No No
Work Less, Live More: The Way to Semi-Retirement by Robert Clyatt. Yes No
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason. No No
The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein. No No
A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel. No No

 
* Oyster catalog checked June 2014 and Amazon Unlimited checked July 2014.

Recap

In the “major publisher, popular, well-reviewed” category, Oyster wins hands-down. AmazonUnlimited reportedly does not have any of the major “Big 5” publishers (they are not BFFs right now). In the “recent business bestseller” category, neither is great but Amazon actually has a slightly better showing. Many of Michael Lewis’s other books are also on AmazonUnlimited (The Big Short, Liar’s Poker, The Blind Side). In the “niche DIY early retirement personal finance nerd” category, again neither does great although Oyster technically wins by a nose.

Bottom line: Amazon Unlimited has a relatively limited catalog for personal finance enthusiasts.

Keep in mind that the Amazon Kindle Owner’s Lending Library still exists (at least for now) and boasts 500,000+ titles (again padded by self-published eBooks). The Kindle Lending Library is free if you already have both a Kindle (any model) and an Amazon Prime subscription. You can only read on a Kindle device though, and you only get one title per month.

There are some promising titles available if you dig around, for example I noticed that William Bernstein’s “Investing for Adults” series of books (The Ages of the Investor, Skating Where the Puck Was, Deep Risk, and Rational Expectations so far) are all available with both Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Lending Library.

Personally, I might sign-up for the free trial and read whatever books I can during that window and maybe it’ll spill over for a month (though you can cancel now and still enjoy you free month without worry of auto-bill), but I can’t see myself paying $120 a year for a limited selection of books (that interest me) that I can’t keep forever.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.


Book Review: The Four Pillars of Investing

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone.

Update: Yanking this one from waaaay back in the archives! Today (6/4) only, the Kindle eBook version of The Four Pillars of Investing is only $1.99. I read this book nearly 10 years ago, and I still have my hardcover copy sitting on my bookshelf. One of my favorites.

My original review published on December 26, 2004:

4pbookWhile A Random Walk Down Wall Street was more of a primer on investing in general, The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein focuses on forming your portfolio. The four pillars are investment theory, history, psychology, and finally investment business.

The book uses statistics and research to support it’s conclusions, which are (briefly and in my opinion) that:

  1. Markets go up and down, but timing it is hard if not impossible, and any success one may have is basically luck.
  2. As risk increases, so does the return. (Ex. Small-cap stocks vs. Large-cap stocks.)
  3. Yes, many actively-managed mutuals fund beat the market every year, but there is no way that you could pick them ahead of time. This year’s winners are just as likely to be next year’s losers. Stick with index funds with the risk-return profile that you desire.
  4. Brokerage firms and stock brokers make their money on commissions and spreads. Most mutual fund companies are similar in that they make their money from fees, without actually being very good at market-beating returns.
  5. Proper diversification in low-expense ratio products can bring you the best chance to keep your money and make it grow.

The book is pretty easy to read, with minimal math. I also briefly browsed Bernstein’s previous book, The Intelligent Asset Allocator, which has a similar focus but is very heavy in the math department. I’d read this book first and see if you thirst for the mathematical underpinnings. I didn’t.

My Money Blog has partnered with CardRatings and may receive a commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on this site are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. MyMoneyBlog.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers. All opinions expressed are the author’s alone, and has not been provided nor approved by any of the companies mentioned.

MyMoneyBlog.com is also a member of the Amazon Associate Program, and if you click through to Amazon and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission. Thank you for your support.