The Only Guide to Alternative Investments You'll Ever Need. The Good, the Flawed, the Bad, and the Ugly

An accessible guide that outlines the key elements of an effective financial plan From Larry Swedroe, the author of the bestselling series of «The Only Guide» investment books, with Kevin Grogan and Tiya Lim comes a step-by-step handbook that shows you how to develop a winning personal investment strategy and reveals what it takes to make that strategy part of your overall financial plan. The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan focuses on the «art» of investing and gives you the information you need to create a strategy that is tailor-made for your particular situation. Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors, this book offers the vital information needed for developing and implementing an overall strategic financial plan. In this essential resource, Swedroe outlines the basics in asset allocation and other investment planning concepts. Addresses how you can design an investment policy statement and an individual asset allocation plan Examines how to maintain your portfolio's risk profile in the most cost-effective and tax-efficient manner Offers insights on integrating risk management and estate planning issues into your plan The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan offers a handy tool to help you make more informed and prudent decisions that will go a long way to ensure a secure financial future.

A sharp mind, like a healthy body, is subject to the same rule of nature: Use it or lose it Need a calculator just to work out a 15 percent service charge? Not exactly sure how to get the calculator to give you the figure you need? Turn to this revised and updated edition of All the Math You'll Ever Need, the friendliest, funniest, and easiest workout program around. In no time, you'll have total command of all the powerful mathematical tools needed to make numbers work for you. In a dollars-and-cents, bottom-line world, where numbers influence everything, none of us can afford to let our math skills atrophy. This step-by-step personal math trainer: Refreshes practical math skills for your personal and professional needs, with examples based on everyday situations. Offers straightforward techniques for working with decimals and fractions. Demonstrates simple ways to figure discounts, calculate mortgage interest rates, and work out time, rate, and distance problems. Contains no complex formulas and no unnecessary technical terms.

A comprehensive and hands-on guide to crucial math concepts and terminology In the newly revised third edition of All the Math You’ll Ever Need: A Self-Teaching Guide , veteran math and computer technology teacher Carolyn Wheater and veteran mathematics author Steve Slavin deliver a practical and accessible guide to math you can use every day and apply to a wide variety of life tasks. From calculating monthly mortgage payments to the time you’ll need to pay off a credit card, this book walks you through the steps to understanding basic math concepts. This latest edition is updated to reflect recent changes in interest rates, prices, and wages, and incorporates information on the intelligent and efficient use of calculators and mental math techniques. It also offers: A brand-new chapter on hands-on statistics to help readers understand common graphs An easy-to-use-format that provides an interactive method with frequent questions, problems, and self-tests Complete explanations of necessary mathematical concepts that explore not just how math works, but also why it worksPerfect for anyone seeking to make practical use of essential math concepts and strategies in their day-to-day life, All the Math You’ll Ever Need is an invaluable addition to the libraries of students who want a bit of extra help applying math in the real world.

Whether you’re in retirement, just getting ready to retire, or 5, 10, or 40 years out, this book can help you invest smarter your whole life and yes, plan better for retirement. Harmful mythology abounds about retirement investing. Many retirees or soon-to-be retirees have heard a plethora of advice. Take 100 (or 120) and subtract your age to get your equity allocation, put the rest in bonds or cash. Buy only bonds. Buy only high dividend stocks. Or some combination! Buy equity-indexed annuities or some “guaranteed” income product. All examples of a potentially harmful myth many folks believe to be smart, strategic moves. Investors believe preparing for retirement requires a radically different set of tools or a dizzying array of products. Navigating the world of retirement products and services can be a full-time job. But investing for retirement is, in practice, not much (if at all) different from investing. In Your Retirement Plan, Ken Fisher will give readers a workable strategy to either develop their own retirement investing plan or work more successfully with a professional to increase the likelihood of achieving long-term goals while avoiding common pitfalls. The book will include easy-to-follow steps like How to think, correctly, about investing time horizon. How to better figure how much income you need How to determine if a portfolio can provide that income How to figure how much to save each year to achieve retirement goals What pitfalls to avoid And more. . . . In this retirement planning book that's not just for retirees, Fisher will hand readers the tools and confidence they need to better plan for the future.

Praise For THE LITTLE BOOK OF ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS «Ben and Phil have done it again. Another lucid, insightful book, designed to enhance your wealth! In today's stock-addled cult of equities, there is a gaping hole in most investors' portfolios…the whole panoply of alternative investments that can simultaneously help us cut our risk, better hedge our inflation risk, and boost our return. This Little Book is filled with big ideas on how to make these markets and strategies a treasured part of our investing toolkit.» —Robert Arnott, Chairman, Research Affiliates «I have been reading Ben Stein for thirty-five years and Phil DeMuth since he joined up with Ben ten years ago. They do solid work, and this latest is no exception.» —Jim Rogers, author of A Gift to My Children «If anyone can make hedge funds sexy, Stein and DeMuth can, and they've done it with style in this engaging, instructive, and tasteful how-to guide for investing in alternatives. But you should read this Kama Sutra of investment manuals not just for the thrills, but also to learn how to avoid the hazards of promiscuous and unprotected investing.» —Andrew Lo, Professor and Director, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering

Praise for Money & Happiness «Laura Rowley makes us all understand the money-happiness connection in our own lives so that we spend our time and our efforts wisely. She gets to the heart of why money can bring feelings of stress, joy, and freedom, and Rowley offers insight that every reader can use to make smarter decisions that will lead to living a rich life in every possible definition of the term.» –Lucy Danziger, Editor in Chief, Self magazine «This is a wry and companionable guide to getting your finances in better sync with your values, and who wouldn't be enriched by that?» –Melinda Henneberger, Contributing Editor, Newsweek «Money and Happiness takes cold, hard, financial information and warms it up through the voice of your best friend. You'll find out how to achieve your life dreams, and avoid money nightmares. The cost of this book may be the best investment you'll ever make.» –Kevin McKinley, CFP, author of Make Your Kid a Millionaire and host of public radio's On Your Money «Let Laura Rowley guide you to a rational and rewarding life by helping you re-order your approach to your financial well-being. This book covers all the dimensions you need to know about how to plan properly for your reality. She teaches that you need not be loaded to be happy. And she shows you how to set, then achieve, your goals. For your sanity, Rowley is a welcome antidote to the wave of materialism washing over our culture.» –Allan Dodds Frank, Bloomberg Television

This guide from bestselling real estate authors de Roos and Kennedy shows you how to use tax-free retirement funds to invest in real estate. Using real estate IRAs, you can combine the tax benefits of retirement funds with the high rates of appreciation in the real estate market, growing your retirement investments by leaps and bounds. This handy book shows you how.

The irreverent guide to investing, Boglehead style The Boglehead's Guide to Investing is a DIY handbook that espouses the sage investment wisdom of John C. Bogle. This witty and wonderful book offers contrarian advice that provides the first step on the road to investment success, illustrating how relying on typical «common sense» promoted by Wall Street is destined to leave you poorer. This updated edition includes new information on backdoor Roth IRAs and ETFs as mainstream buy and hold investments, estate taxes and gifting, plus changes to the laws regarding Traditional and Roth IRAs, and 401k and 403b retirement plans. With warnings and principles both precisely accurate and grandly counterintuitive, the Boglehead authors show how beating the market is a zero-sum game. Investing can be simple, but it's certainly not simplistic. Over the course of twenty years, the followers of John C. Bogle have evolved from a loose association of investors to a major force with the largest and most active non-commercial financial forum on the Internet. The Boglehead's Guide to Investing brings that communication to you with comprehensive guidance to the investment prowess on display at Bogleheads.org. You'll learn how to craft your own investment strategy using the Bogle-proven methods that have worked for thousands of investors, and how to: Choose a sound financial lifestyle and diversify your portfolio Start early, invest regularly, and know what you're buying Preserve your buying power, keeping costs and taxes low Throw out the «good» advice promoted by Wall Street that leads to investment failure Financial markets are essentially closed systems in which one's gain garners another's loss. Investors looking for a roadmap to successfully navigating these choppy waters long-term will find expert guidance, sound advice, and a little irreverent humor in The Boglehead's Guide to Investing.

Professional investors have long understood the importance of bonds in a successful portfolio strategy. Now you can too. That's because Wall Street bond expert Michael Brandes takes a unique approach to this complex subject—he makes it simple. In Naked Guide to Bonds: What You Need to Know, Stripped Down to the Bare Essentials, technical jargon and complicated subject matter are translated into a straightforward, easy-to-read style with plenty of examples. What's more, rather than writing an all-inclusive book on the bond market, Brandes uses his expertise to eliminate the information that is not relevant to individual investors. The result is a practical and succinct guide that empowers you to make informed investment decisions. Naked Guide to Bonds is written so that each chapter builds upon the information that precedes it. That way you'll never be thrown for a loop. It begins with basic questions such as: Who issues bonds, and why? And how are bonds bought and sold? Then you'll learn about the structure of these securities and the characteristics that distinguish them from stocks. Once you're armed with the fundamentals, you'll discover how inflation, interest rates, and changes in the economy impact bond prices. Naked Guide to Bonds also provides insights about different types of bonds, including those issued by the U.S. government and its agencies, municipalities, corporations, and international issuers. Most importantly, you'll understand how to identify the bonds that are most appropriate for you. In the final sections, you'll determine how to: Assess your risk profile and set goals Construct a portfolio to meet your objectives Implement a customized strategy Evaluate individual bonds and mutual funds Monitor and maintain your portfolio Avoid the most common mistakes Filled with helpful charts and informative «Bare Essentials» summary points at the beginning of each chapter, Naked Guide to Bonds provides an effective way to become a smart and successful bond investor. Take a look for yourself and you'll see how enjoyable and rewarding learning about bonds can be.