The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk

by William Bernstein

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Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Bernstein has become a guru to a peculiarly '90s group: well-educated, Internet-powered people intent on investing well--and with minimal ‘help' from professional Wall Street.--Robert Barker, BusinessWeek

William Bernstein is one of today's most unlikely financial heroes. A practicing neurologist, he used his self-taught investment knowledge and research to build a popular investor's website. Now, in the plain-spoken The Intelligent Asset Allocator, he shows independent investors how to build a diversified portfolio--without the help of a financial advisor.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Great book for learning about investment portfolio strategies, 2010-03-07
I bought 'The Intelligent Asset Allocator' right after loosing my shirt in the dot com bust about nine years ago. I came to the realization that there had to be a better method to sound long-term investing than chasing highly volatile internet stocks. For most part, I have followed a broad asset allocation investment strategy with re-allocation annually. The big lesson: I also learned to enjoy life, volunteer, be thankful, encourage others, and nurture great friendships.

What I liked about this book are the explanations about risk and reward in a straight-forward understandable math context. Risk is defined as the standard deviation of the annual returns for a particular asset (e.g, stock, fund, bond). Dr. Bernstein uses a set of interesting coin toss investment examples throughout several of the chapters to illustrate this risk/reward strategy. Nice approach to introducing the topic for each chapter. By Chapter 3, simple risk/reward plots are shown based on different ownership percentages of two assets. The book does a great job explaining the rationale for selecting portfolio percentages for various asset classes.

Actually, Dr. Bernstein has published a collection of books on asset allocation, each with a different level of technical content.

The Intelligent Asset Allocator
The Four Pillars of Investing
The Investor's Manifesto

I found the following quote on his website appealing: "When I wrote The Intelligent Asset Allocator, I thought I was producing a volume for the average investor. Turns out I was wrong: the book's audience was closer to the average electrical engineer. So I tried a little harder and produced The Four Pillars of Investing. Close, but no cigar: still lots of complaints about all the math and graphs."

Regardless of which book you acquire, asset allocation and portfolio theory is worth understanding for any investor.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

a MUST READ for those who manage their own portfolios, 2010-02-15
This is one of the best books on asset allocation.

Although the topics may be a little complex to some, they are worth understanding. And even if you don't fully grasp the intricacies you will still get a somewhat clear path to allocation your money better than any broker or advisor will do for you.

It is a great read that is truly hard to put down. Bernstein is a very good writer and quite humorous at times.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3 out of 5 stars

Interesting, but ..., 2009-09-26
This book of William Bernstein is really interesting, but...should be "addressed" to people that is much into number analysis, statistics and so on; I mean that the concepts are interesting, but the way Bernstein writes is full of numbers, diagrams etc.; I found this book a little bit "too scientific" for my taste...!

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

Expert Treatise On Asset Allocation, 2009-01-22
An excellent and scholarly work on asset allocation with pertinent historical data and simple understandable explanations of the mathematical concepts involved. I highly recommend this book to anyone truly trying to figure how to best balance investment return vs risk.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

5 out of 5 stars

A Must Read for Asset Allocation Planning, 2008-08-14
William Bernstein has written an excellent book on Asset Allocation. I was first introduced to the book at a local chapter of AAII. It was highly recommended by all the members who had read it.I found the book to be an easy read and held my interest all the way through.I can't say that about many books on financial subjects.His research along with the data presented as tables and graphs was easy to follow and understand.It was well worth the time and money spent.

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