by Marvin Appel
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Product Description
"Possessing a rare skill set amongst professional investors and authors, Dr. Appel has successfully managed to provide readers with the perfect mix of up-to-date details on the various types and asset classes of ETFs, crucial, tried, and true concepts of risk management, and just the right mix of backing historical data to pull it all together--all in a "user-friendly" package. Upon conclusion of this book, readers will have experienced a paradigm shift in the thought process of their own current investment strategies. Taking it to the next level and actually implementing the concepts will automatically cause readers to experience a higher level of profitability and consistency; one they might never have thought possible from the utilization of concepts in just one small book." --Deron Wagner, Founder and Portfolio Manager, MorpheusTrading.com, author, Trading ETFs: Gaining An Edge With Technical Analysis "Today, exchange-traded funds are the most innovative and rapidly growing investment vehicles.Marvin Appel's new book provides, in a highly readable framework, a wealth of information on what they are and--more importantly--how private and professional investors can use them to build wealth through a simple and easy-to-implement investment program" --C. Michael Carty, Principal and Chief Investment Officer, New Millennium Advisors, LLC "In the ever-expanding complex world of ETFs, Marvin Appel has cut through all the fluff and created a one-stop guide to not only using them, but using them profitably. The sections on diversification and the use of relative strength in comparing asset classes are invaluable. Individual investors and financial advisors alike will get a significant return on investment by spending time with this book" --Bob Kargenian, CMT, President/Principal, TABR Capital Management, LLC ETFs offer exceptionally low expenses, outstanding performance, and unparalleled transparency. With more than 200 new ETFs added in just the last year, for typical investors, the choices are simply overwhelming. In this fully updated guidebook, renowned ETF expert Dr.Marvin Appel cuts through the ETF marketing hype, offering a start-to-finish plan for choosing the right ETFs--today, and for years to come. Appel reveals what ETFs can and can't do, explains why they're not all equally attractive, and shows exactly how to use them to beat the market. Drawing on objective data and proven, backtested strategies, Appel shows how to quickly move into the right ETFs at the right time, consistently staying on the winning side of major market trends. Appel starts by explaining how ETFs work, then illuminates every facet of ETF investing: quantifying risk and reward; increasing investment income; deciding when to move into cash; and much more. This book includes new chapters on commodity ETFs, using ETFs for investment income and all new coverage of emerging market ETFs. Appel also provides a clear assessment of tax-oriented ETF investing. From start to finish, this book candidly assesses risks, costs, and rewards--helping you become an informed ETF consumer, and an exceptionally effective ETF investor.* Discover what today's newest ETFs can do for you Get the real deal on commodity ETFs, emerging market ETFs, and more*Use ETFs to invest like the big players Drive down costs, and fully leverage diversification, Wall Street's only "free lunch"*Learn what your investment advisors still won't tell you The objective truth about today's ETF's: changing costs, risks, and opportunities*Build and maintain your "one-decision" portfolio--the easy way! Profitable investing has never been this simple*Derive even greater profits with proven "active" strategies Simple allocation strategies you can implement in just minutes
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Average Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 This strategy would have lost you a fortune in 2008, 2008-12-10
Unless I'm missing something (and I doubt I am) the Ultimate ETF Strategy described in this book CLEARLY would have resulted in a miserable failure in 2008. The stock market is currently down roughly 40%, and the REITS index is down over 50% as of this writing. If you had put 25% into a REITs index ETF, 25% into a total bond index find, 25% into either a foreign or domestic stock index ETF, and the other 25% into an investment style ETF (either Large or Small, and either Growth or value) prescribed in this book, you would have lost an incredible amount of your investment in 2008. Likely the only portion that would have been relatively flat would have been the bond ETF, which is 25% of the strategy. I believe you likely also would have lost with this strategy in 2007 too.
NOTE: The Ultimate ETF Strategy has an interest rate indicator which is supposed to be a signal to get out of half the equities which would leave you 25% exposed instead of 50%. I didn't follow this signal, but I DOUBT this signal would have gotten triggered in 2008, since I believe either an inverted curve or higher yields compared to the previous 6 months was the trigger. TNX Yield has generally gone down for 2008 and the curve wasn't inverted. Even if triggered, which I doubt was the case, I believe, the investor would still be 25% invested in equities instead of 50%, and you still would be 25% invested in REITS, so 2008 would still have been a horrible year.
One key problem with this book, as alluded to by another reviewer, is that the research data goes back to the early 1980s, and the past 25 years or so have generally been a bullish period for stocks. The basic idea behind this book is that you stay 50% invested in equities most of the time (except when the interest rate trigger makes you get only 25% invested in equities, with the other 25% in cash). Based on trends, you make sure the two stock ETFS you own (or one ETF when the interest rate trigger had gotten you out of the other ETF) have been outperformers relative to other indices (until the performance trend changes). 25% goes into a total bond market index ETF and the other 25% goes into a REITS index ETF. (the latter got CRUSHED in 2008 even more than equities at the time of this writing)
The premise (whether stated or implied) is that, since this strategy had outperformed the market for, *roughly*, the past 25 years (at time the book was written), and had been a profitable strategy for that time period, then it is likely to be an outperforming and profitable strategy in the future. The problem, as I see it, is that the 25 year period beginning at the time this book was published may be very different in terms of performance compared to the prior 25 years!
I followed this strategy in 2007, except that I didn't buy a REITs ETF, because it looked to me like a REITs were in a BUBBLE (good decision on my part!), and I bought a Fidelity Short Term Bond fund instead of a Total Bond Index ETF (not-so-great decision on my part). However, I decided to abandon this strategy altogether in December of 2007 and sold ALL my equities by the 1st week of January. (one of the best financial decisions of my life!)
I had abandoned this strategy when I read about the problems in the financial sector, housing sector, and the credit markets. Thankfully, I saved myself a lot of money by NOT following this strategy!
In 2008, I made money trading in and out of the market (including shorting the market), while the world at large lost 40% or more of their money buying and holding stock indices. My opinion is that buying and holding stock indices for the long term is not going to be the ticket to high returns that it was 25 years ago, even if holding the indices that are relative outperformers (such as holding the S&P if it outperforms EFA, or holding a Small Cap growth if it has outperformed large growth, or large cap value).
Frankly, I do NOT recommend anyone follow this strategy, or any other strategy that would leave you exposed to equities throughout a major bear market (in terms of length or in terms of percentage).
Do yourselves a favor, and find a chart of the Japanese Nikkei 225. In 1990, the Nikkei was around 40,000. Now it's under 9,000 and it is almost 19 years later. Buy and hold would have lost you a fortune! Same thing could be happening in the USA for the next 10 or 20 years.
Don't be fooled into thinking that stocks can't have 20 or even 30 year year periods where the returns are lousy relative to simple money market accounts. I would not bet the farm on ANY strategy that would keep you exposed to equities and REITs all the time. The lack of a satisfactory EXIT strategy for equities or REITS is a major flaw in the Ultimate ETF Strategy described in this book.
Sorry, but I can't recommend this book, unless you are comfortable with the idea of potentially losing a lot of money. Strategies that were successful for the 25 year period before the book was published will not necessarily work well from that point forward.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Wide-Ranging Overview, 2008-06-17
Marvin Appel does a very thorough job covering ETFs. His book is surprisingly wide-ranging. On the one hand, he explains some very basic concepts, for example explaining a bid-ask spread. On the other, he gets into the sophisticated details of ETF composition. This book is a like a small ETF encyclopedia. Well done!
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 Too much fluff, too little on international investing, 2008-03-26
Like other Appel books, this one is too heavy on fluff and not enough on the real thing: solid strategies. There's also way too little discussion on international ETFs, esp. given how such ETFs account for a large percentage of all ETFs out there in the marketplace. I also have doubts about the buy-and-hold strategy; after all, one can easily have done that with mutual funds.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Cuts Through Hype & Gives You a Strategy, 2008-03-12
I read this book over the Christmas holidays and found it very helpful. It is one of the best books on investing that I've read of late. The best part about the book is that it gives you some guidelines on how to develop a diversified portfolio. The author gets a little long-winded in some parts, but he gives you a good idea of what to look at in terms of trends and sectors of the market to get into. I appreciated the list of Web sites he provided.
I found the book very readable, but I would not recommend it to a novice investor. Overall, this is a very good book for an intermediate/advanced investor and it encourages using the Internet to track price movements. Bear in mind that the author assumes that you have the time of day to get on the Internet and track prices in order to observe trends, which may be profitable. This is a book for those who can devote some spare time to investing on their own. If you don't have the time or energy, buy a bank CD and call it a day.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
 Too long-winded, 2007-07-10
Not as clear or as useful an introduction as the 'Dummies' series book on ETFs, but a good additional introduction if you have no knowledge of statistics and time-series etc, and want a little more detail patiently explained to you.
If you already know basic statistics and correlation, you don't need this text - as the explanations are rather long-winded and, at times, irritating.
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