The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need: Index Funds and Beyond--The Way Smart Money Invests Today

This by far the most usable of all the asset allocation fund books I've read. Succinct, understandable and totally applicable to one's ability to produce an asset allocation portfolio using low cost index or exchange traded funds. Swedroe explains the importance of understanding the randomness of the market, the power of low mangement fees and the need to periodically rebalance your portfolio. In one extraordinary chapter he follows the effects of adding different classes to the porfolio mix (e.eg 60% stock with 40% bonds) and how it affects the percentage return, the standard deviation and, most importantly, the growth of a dollar. Totally fascinating, and for the greedy among us, a breath of fresh air in the smoky confusion of personal investment conundrums. If your have any serious interest in investing your own capital for maximum returns with minimal hassle, get this book. Swedroe in using Markowitz's Nobel prize winning (1990) theory of portfolio construction clearly illuuminates intelligent asset class allocations. Read it,and all will become translucent; you will be one happy capitalist, for sure. Jim B

Larry has not only done it again, but done it better. The first book I read on investing was the initial edition (1998) of this book. Having just finished the latest edition of the book, Larry has added lots of new content. The many and new real-life stories throughout the book are filled with wisdom and insight. Many of the references and statistics cited have been updated to reflect the changes in the market conditions since 1998. The comparison between index funds, passive asset class funds and ETFs is very well presented. The new appendices address some timely questions and common investor concerns. The one thing that has not changed is the winning investment strategy! Overall, my kudos to Larry on a job well done. Most importantly, this is the BEST book for the layman (or professional) to get a gut feel for how to take advantage of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). It not only explains the theory, but also gives step by step instructions on how to implement the strategy. I am a fee-only investment advisor myself (not affiliated with Larry's firm) and I give a copy of this book to every new client. It is simply the best way to educate them about the winning investment strategy. Thank you Larry!

After reading Larry Swedroe's excellent second and third books I felt compelled to return and read this, his first book. My urge to do so has been more than adequately rewarded by this excellent text.Larry Swedroe lays strong foundations by focusing on three major areas. First, he summarizes the results of several studies indicating that passive investment strategies outperform, over time and by a wide margin, active investment management. Second, Mr. Swedroe offers the individual investor a through overview of Modern Portfolio Theory and its subset, Efficient Markets Theory. Third, Larry provides a guide to the construction of a portfolio and discusses the roles investment advisors may undertake for the individual investor.While some of the material in this first book is duplicated and updated in the second and third books, I recommend all three of these texts to individual investors. Larry Swedroe possesses the knack to take recent academic research and pass it on in an understandable, common sense manner to the many individual investors who do not possess advanced degrees in statistics.My own library of "good books" on investing has grown to nearly 20 different texts. All three of Larry Swedroe's texts make my "good book" list. (I have rejected over 100 other texts and not included them on my "good book" list.) I highly recommend all of Larry's books, together with additional texts by Burton Malkeil, Peter Bernstein, John Bogle, Bruce Temkin, Roger Gibson and others. Larry's three books greatly assist the individual investor to build a solid base of knowledge to understand what works (and the many things that don't work) in investing. I highly recommend this book, and all three of his books, as key additions to every serious investor's library.

What a revelation! I've been investing for years and managed to get what I though was a good return until I looked at the results possible in this book (and I've read a lot of investment books!)The suggestions on creating a "model portfolio" just make sense. The documentation and analysis is very good and well-supported with facts and figures.I suspect that Larry Swedroe has few friends on Wall Street because he does an effective job skewering several myths and mythmakers - you'll enjoy his analyses of these "forecasters" results. I recommend this book particularly if your porftfolio has failed to beat the S & P 500 for the last five years or so.

If you are an investment neophyte or an index fund guru, this book will expand your knowledge. The research is in and the results are unequivocal, indexing beats active management over time and by a significant amount. The only people who contest the evidence are active fund managers who don't want to lose their paying customers. Larry Swedroe provides the evidence in a fully documented book that explains not only why index investing outperforms active fund management, but also how you can put the information to work for you. In eleven easy to read chapters, Mr. Swedroe explains Modern Portfolio Theory, research that won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1990. But this isn't an economics book. It's a book written for the layman that explains index mutual fund investing and how to do it most effectively. Information you don't know can cost you dearly. Be an informed investor and stop paying high fees to fund managers who can't outperform their comparable indexes. Read the book today, you can thank me later.