From the Back Cover
Portfolio design--choosing the right mix of assets appropriate to a particular investor--is the key to successful investing. It can help you accumulate wealth over time, while cushioning the blow of possible economic downturns. But in order to successfully achieve this goal, you need to be familiar with all of the major asset classes that go into modern portfolios and learn how much they each add to portfolio diversification.
This book is about the individual assets in a portfolio, and how they perform together in a portfolio. For example, what does real estate or private equity add to a portfolio? And nobody understands this better than author Richard Marston--director of the Private Wealth Management program at Wharton--whose extensive academic and professional asset allocation experience gives him a comprehensive perspective of this dynamic discipline.
Based on sessions Marston developed for the Certified Investment Management AnalystSM (CIMA(R)) program at Wharton, Portfolio Design is written for financial advisors who want to provide diversified portfolios for their clients--whether the clients are high-net-worth individuals or institutional investors. Rich in information about individual asset classes, including traditional assets like stocks and bonds as well as "alternative investments" such as hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and commodities, this book offers a fresh look at asset allocation, and discusses its importance in today's investment environment. Page by page, this book:
- Outlines methods for estimating long-run returns for a diversified portfolio
- Examines the roles that value, growth, and small-cap stocks play in a portfolio
- Discusses the importance of investing in foreign equities and emerging stock markets
- Explores the modern fixed-income market in detail
- Assesses the effect alternative investments can have on a portfolio
- Details feasible spending rules for foundations as well as individuals facing retirement
Thoughtful asset allocation provides discipline to the investment process and gives you the best chance of building and safeguarding wealth. This book will guide you through the major decisions that need to be made when designing a portfolio and will put you in the best position to balance the risk-reward relationship that is a part of this difficult endeavor.
RICHARD C. MARSTON is currently James R.F. Guy Professor of Finance and Director, George Weiss Center for International Financial Research at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He was a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship, Fulbright Fellowship, and the Sanwa Bank Prize in International Finance. He has been a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research since 1979, a visiting professor at London Business School, ESSEC in Paris, and the Sasin Institute at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and Visiting Scholar at the Bank of Japan. Since 1999, he has been Academic Director of the Private Wealth Management Program at Wharton, a week-long program for ultra-high-net-worth investors, and he is a long-standing faculty member in the Certified Investment Management Analyst program at Wharton, having taught asset allocation to over 5000 financial advisors.
