Asset Allocation For Dummies

by Dorianne Perrucci

An easy-to-understand how-to guide to the single most important thing you can do in investing -- choosing and mixing your assets successfully.You don't need to be an expert analyst, a star stock-picker, or a rocket scientist to have better investment results than most other investors. You just need to allocate your assets in the right way, and have the conviction to stick with that allocation.

The big secret behind asset allocation -- the secret that most sophisticated investors know and use to their benefit -- is that it's really not all that hard to do.

Asset Allocation For Dummies serves as a comprehensive guide to maximizing returns and minimizing risk -- while managing taxes, fees and other costs -- in putting together a portfolio to reflect your unique financial goals.

Jerry A. Miccolis (Basking Ridge, NJ), CFA(R), CFP(R), FCAS, MAAA is a widely quoted expert commentator who has been interviewed in The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and appeared on CBS Radio and ABC-TV. He is a senior financial advisor and co-owner of Brinton Eaton Wealth Advisors (www.brintoneaton.com), a fee-only investment management, tax advisory and financial planning firm in Madison, N.J. Dorianne R. Perrucci (Scotch Plains, NJ) is a freelance writer who has been published in The New York Times, Newsweek, and TheStreet.com, and has collaborated on several financial books, including I.O.U.S.A, One Nation, Under Stress, In Debt (Wiley, 2008).

Genres: Finance, Business

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very good book for beginners. Should be the 2nd book to read right after Personal Finance for Dummies.

[David Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Asset Allocation For Dummies by Jerry A Miccolis et al which is an excellent book which I read at
http://safaribooksonline.com
The idea of asset allocation is diversifying your investments to minimize risk and at the same time maximize the potential of what you can make. You obviously shouldn't invest everything in the same investment and equally in the same type of investment. Also you don't want your investments maturing at the same time to avoid paying loads of tax. You should arrange things ideally over a 10 year period so that a little matures each year and obviously one exception to that is you may want a lot of your investments to mature when you retire and bear in mind you could be alive for a further 25 years so if you don't have private pensions you need a lot to maintain a reasonable standard of life. In the book they rate Exchange Traded Funds or ETF's higher than stocks and shares and risk endured should be proportional to potential gain. A certain portion of your wealth can be invested in a tangible investment like real estate or something like antiques, bear in mind with the latter it's a very fickle market & certainly if someone values something at a certain price it might get a lot less at an auction. The home you live in like the car you drive shouldn't be regarded as an investment unless you intend to sell it at a profit at a later date. They usually call these kinds of costs a use investment in that you are buying them to use. This book is aimed at the American market but the general advice is sound & I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

[Skylar Burris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suggests potential asset allocations based on stage in life; suggests rebalancing at least once a year but preferably three times a year, as rebalancing forces you to sell high and buy low. Talks about the different asset classes in some detail. Warns against trying to "time the market." As with many books of this type, doesn't give a lot of reasons to seek out a financial manager.

[Jc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great concise introduction to asset allocation in all its complexity.