The Gone Fishin' Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy...and Get on With Your Life (Agora Series) (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Steve Sjuggerud (Foreword)
Key Phrases: index fund, single most important investment decision, rebalance your portfolio, Wall Street, Portfolio Unveiled, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"… business leaders in charge of company 401(k) plans might want to look at The Gone Fishin' Portfolio…without non-correlated investments, workers will never be able to protect themselves from the craziness we call 'Wall Street.'" (The Wall Street Journal, September 26, 2008)

Product Description

Outperform the vast majority of investment professionals while paying nothing in sales charges, brokerage fees, or commissions by modifying your investment strategy. Learn how to make your investment dreams come true with the advice in The Gone Fishin' Portfolio: Get Wise, Get Wealthy...and Get on With Your Life, a guide that’s based on a Nobel Prize-winning investment strategy yet takes just 20 minutes to implement. Gain an understanding of the fundamental relationship between risk and reward in the financial markets and get an insider's view of how the investment industry really works.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (September 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470112670
• ISBN-13: 978-0470112670
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #22,670 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There are no magic bullets..., September 12, 2008

By	W. A. McKnight "WAM" (Duluth, GA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just finished reading this book and thought it was pretty good overall. However, as an experienced investor, I know that there are no magic bullets in investing. The book shows performance of the portfolio over the past seven or so years. In those years, the S&P 500 (domestic stocks) performed rather poorly while gold, other commodities, real estate and foreign investments did exceedingly well. This portfolio stays invested at all times in all of these asset classes.

I took the liberty of backtesting the same portfolio for the ten years preceeding the 2000's, and the S&P 500 way outperformed this portfolio. This did not surprise me given the fact that we were in a full blown bull market. Those other asset classes underperformed, some badly.

I think that the Gone Fishin Portfolio will perform relatively well in more uncertain markets. However, I am not convinced that will happen when the domestic markets rally strongly.

My point here is that the oversimplification will lure rookie investors into a false sense of security.

I am sorry, but even if you are using a broadly diversified portfolio of mutual funds or ETF's, you must pay attention and understand the weakness of such a simplified approach. You will have to spend more time on your portfolio than 20 minutes a year.

65 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gone Fishin' Portfolio down 23.25% - no silver bullet, October 2, 2008

By	Talmadge O'neill - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Like so many business books, this book could be condensed into a single page. Here are some of the key bullet points:
* Save more money. i.e. stop drinking starbucks coffee everyday.
* Expect to be able to withdraw 4% of your assets annually after you retire i.e. you need $1 million to generate $40,000 a year in pre-tax income. Some people would say withdrawing 3% would be more conservative.
* Perform asset allocation across 10 Vanguard (index) funds (low cost)as follows: 15% VTSMX; 15% NAESX; 10% VEIEX; 10% VEURX; 10% VPACX; 10% VWEHX; 10% VFSTX; 10% VIPSX; 5% VGSIX; 5% VGPMX.
* This represents a 70% stock, 30% bond portfolio with heavy international slant
* Re-balance every 12-18 months
* Don't use brokers/investment advisors with their 1%+ annual fee
* Don't try to time the market

Good advice. Now how is the portfolio doing? From January 2, 2008 to August 9, 2009, it is down 23.25%. How is that doing relative to a 70% stock 30% bond portfolio (in the case of 70% VTSMX and 30% VIPSX), that would have returned -23.67%. You'd have to compare risk in the portfolio, but I suspect that you'd find that the "Going Fishin'" portfolio will deliver you a basic risk adjusted market return. Nothing fancy. We're not talking endowment fund returns.

[...] [...] [...] What readers should really care about is, if I took the [...] advice, how would I have done. And the answer is - same as any portfolio with similar risk and reasonable diversification. That's not a negative, it just does not live up to any hype.

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally! Telling me what I need to know!, September 8, 2008

By	Sammy E. (USA) - See all my reviews

Aside from the book being readable and enjoyable, it finally does what no other investment books do... tell you what to do!

Instead of complex formulas and vague recommendations, this book shows you exactly what to invest in and in what amounts. It's a portfolio that will work for 99% of investors. Of course it also explains why this portfolio works and proves how the portfolio beat the market in good times and bad.

When just a few percentage points of extra return can completely alter your retirement, it's important to manager your portfolio properly without sending half of it to your financial adviser. And this book shows exactly how. One of the best and most direct investment books available.