The following post was originally published on Eat the Financial Elephant in March 2015, shortly after my wife and I dug out from under our past investing mistakes. It is the third of the four most valuable resources that helped us go from feeling clueless to competent managing our investment portfolio.
My third recommended resource to help you become a DIY investor is William Bernstein’s “The Intelligent Asset Allocator: How to Build Your Portfolio to Maximize Returns and Minimize Risk.”
Bernstein is a neurosurgeon, author of 7 published books and several e-books, and founder of the money management firm Efficient Frontier Advisors. I just threw that all in there for any of you who think that you don’t have the time to learn to manage your own money.
I previously featured JLCollin’s “Stock Series” and John Bogle’s “Little Book of Common Sense Investing” to introduce the concepts of low-cost, passive index investing. “The Intelligent Asset Allocator” builds on these concepts, explaining why you should consider adding small amounts of complexity to hold a more broadly diversified investment portfolio.
This book is not an easy read as the first two resources were. I found the effort required to be fully worthwhile for the timeless lessons shared in the book. This review will focus on a few of those key concepts.
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