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David F. Swensen

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment Hardcover – August 1, 2005

by David F. Swensen (Author)

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The bestselling author of Pioneering Portfolio Management, the definitive template for institutional fund management, returns with a book that shows individual investors how to manage their financial assets.

In Unconventional Success, investment legend David F. Swensen offers incontrovertible evidence that the for-profit mutual fund industry consistently fails the average investor. From excessive management fees to the frequent "churning" of portfolios, the relentless pursuit of profits by mutual fund management companies harms individual clients. Perhaps most destructive of all are the hidden schemes that limit investor choice and reduce returns, including "pay-to-play" product-placement fees, stale-price trading scams, soft-dollar kickbacks, and 12b-1 distribution charges.

Even if investors manage to emerge unscathed from an encounter with the profit-seeking mutual fund industry, individuals face the likelihood of self-inflicted pain. The common practice of selling losers and buying winners (and doing both too often) damages portfolio returns and increases tax liabilities, delivering a one-two punch to investor aspirations.

In short: Nearly insurmountable hurdles confront ordinary investors.

Swensen's solution? A contrarian investment alternative that promotes well-diversified, equity-oriented, "market-mimicking" portfolios that reward investors who exhibit the courage to stay the course. Swensen suggests implementing his nonconformist proposal with investor-friendly, not-for-profit investment companies such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. By avoiding actively managed funds and employing client-oriented mutual fund managers, investors create the preconditions for investment success.

Bottom line? Unconventional Success provides the guidance and financial know-how for improving the personal investor's financial future.

Print length

403 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Free Press
Publication date

August 1, 2005
Dimensions

6.4 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches
ISBN-10

0743228383
ISBN-13

978-0743228381
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Popular Highlights in this book

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Capital markets provide three tools for investors to employ in generating investment returns: asset allocation, market timing, and security selection.
Highlighted by 587 Kindle readers
Sensible investors pursue diversification as a policy to reduce risk, not as a tactic to chase performance.
Highlighted by 560 Kindle readers
Market timing refers to deviations from the long-term asset-allocation targets. Active market timing represents a purposeful attempt to generate short-term, superior returns based on insights regarding relative asset class valuations.
Highlighted by 379 Kindle readers

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Swensen, CIO of Yale University and the author of Pioneering Portfolio Management, reveals why the mutual fund industry as a whole does a disservice to the individual investor. Soft money, 12b-1 fees, overtrading, market timing, and other management practices lower performance and virtually guarantee that most mutual fund returns will fall short of their benchmark, such as the S&P 500. Furthermore, for-profit mutual fund companies have a fiduciary obligation to their stockholders, not to their investors, and this relationship "inevitably resolves in favor of the bottom line." Swensen is also highly critical of the Morningstar rating system, which only causes investors to chase hot performing funds and managers. He advises considering alternatives to the for-profit mutual fund industry, including Exchange Traded Funds and not-for-profit financial institutions such as Vanguard and TIAA-CREF. He highly recommends that as an individual, you should play a more active role in your financial future. This includes periodic portfolio evaluation and rebalancing, to ensure that your asset allocation remains diversified and suits your investment time line. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Mutual fund managers and marketers are not going to like David Swensen's thoughtful and intelligently opinionated analysis of their 'colossal failure' resulting from the fund industry's 'systemic exploitation of investors.' Coming from the mind and heart of one of America's most successful and integrity-laden money managers, this is a book that will change the way you think about mutual funds. It's high time for you to follow the elegantly simple advice he presents in this wonderful book."
-- John C. Bogle, founder and former CEO, The Vanguard Group

"Swensen is the best. Always a pioneer, his new book presents an approach to investing that is both brilliant and practical."
-- Barton Biggs, former Chief Global Strategist, Morgan Stanley

"A legendary institutional investor reveals the conflicts of interest that induce most financial services companies to provide inadequate products for the individual investor. Swensen's wise solution: Low cost, tax efficient, market-mimicking funds available either through Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) or from not-for-profit mutual fund companies. Unconventional Success does for the individual investor what Swensen's Pioneering Portfolio Management did for the institutional investor."
-- Burton G. Malkiel, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

"David Swensen is one of today's best endowment managers, if not the best. Unconventional Success is a perfect summary of what is wrong with a very important industry. This book should lead the reader to better investment decisions."
-- Michael F. Price, Managing Partner, MFP Investors

"Unfortunately, at the bottom of our industry -- money management -- there is a rather thick layer of muck, and Swensen's Unconventional Success rakes through this muck in spectacular fashion and great detail. It is the truth, the whole truth, and the very ugly truth. If you want to avoid the snares that lurk in money management, and save yourself lots of money, you must read it."
-- Jeremy Grantham, Chairman of GMO

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Free Press; 1st edition (August 1, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 403 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0743228383
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0743228381
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.34 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.4 x 9.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #23,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #13 in Personal Taxes (Books)
- #48 in Retirement Planning (Books)
- #65 in Accounting (Books)

Customer Reviews:
387 ratings

About the author

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David F. Swensen

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David F. Swensen is the chief investment officer of Yale University and the bestselling author of Pioneering Portfolio Management. He serves on the boards of TIAA, The Brookings Institution, Carnegie Institution, and Hopkins School. At Yale, where he produced an unparalleled two-decade investment record of 16.1 percent-per-annum returns, he teaches economics classes at Yale College and finance classes at Yale¹s School of Management. Mr. Swensen lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Customer reviews

5 star		64%
4 star		18%
3 star		11%
2 star		3%
1 star		4%

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DonC

Fantastic book but not for those looking for a recipe

Reviewed in the United States on June 6, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is a great book. Boiled down, it says that equities drive returns but that investors (individuals, endowments, etc.) can't stand the volatility. To address this, the book goes over what the author thinks are the best equity assets for driving returns and the best assets for reducing volatility and protecting against inflation, deflation, and panic. The latter is designed to buck you up and prevent you from selling at the bottom and locking in your losses when things get dicey, which they will from time to time.

The book gives you general ideas for a framework in evaluating assets to be included in your portfolio but, despite giving some general recommendations as to the portfolio composition, doesn't give a lot of specific advice. This seemingly disappoints some. However, if you understand why you have one asset or another it shouldn't be hard to decide what works best for your situation. For example, there has been a lot of discussion as to what duration treasury bonds the author suggests. If you understand that the bonds are designed to protect against deflation and panic, then you should be able to determine for yourself what the duration should be (e.g., if you're 85 years old you shouldn't be concerned about purchasing power in 30 years). Likewise, if you're 85 years old you probably want to have more bonds that the recommended portfolio since you shouldn't be as concerned about returns over the next 50 years. Managing a retirement account for an individual is different than managing a portfolio for a university with an almost unlimited time horizon. The author makes this clear in numerous ways, though the language may be more academic than most investing guides.

In this regard, some may find William Bernstein or Ric Edelman more accessible. David Swensen may be more insightful in parsing the various asset classes but they have a more folksy approach using more examples -- people often find induction works better than deduction. My advice would be to start with Edelman, move to Bernstein, and then read this book. The message isn't all that different, but ultimately your investing is a personal journey and the more ways of understanding the issues the better prepared you will be for tackling the job. Plus repetition never hurts!

93 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Will help you understand and justify your asset allocation, so you can stay the course during bear markets

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2016

Verified Purchase

The hardest part about index fund, buy-and-hold investing is staying the course during market downturns. You can never really know how tempted you will be to sell during a crisis.

This book provides the knowledge necessary for investors to choose their asset allocations, and most importantly, to be able to justify their asset allocations to themselves. The author details which investments belong in a portfolio, and which do not, using a variety of factors. Understanding the justifications for their investment choices asset allocations will give investors the conviction to stay the course during bear markets, rather than sell in a panic.

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

Manfred

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2021

Verified Purchase

This book is worth the time reading it for all investors that take a long-term view. Swenson goes through the asset classes that are available and offers his perspective on which ones are suitable for a private investor backed up by sufficient data. Although at times a bit lengthy and too detailed it should be on the standard reading list before making decisions on which asset classes to consider. Understanding and considering the content will help avoiding costly mistakes.

The book is written from the US American perspective. People from other places can still derive sufficient value from the content as the basic principles apply universally. The only parts that don't work elsewhere are where US tax rules play a critical role.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Simon Swanson

Great book, but definitely targeted at older beginners

Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

David Swensen has clearly had success investing. I think that is indisputable. His advice is relatively sound, but I find it to be too hand-wavy in some cases and too general to provide useful information to anyone who has spent their time roving Bogleheads or MMM. The most informative thing I found was his explanation on why he invests exclusively in US Treasury bonds instead of junk/corporate bonds. The information on active vs. index funds has been beaten to death, but for a beginner this is all still good information. I could do without the various conspiracy-like comments on how the government is in bed with various industries and how they're screwing over the middle class because that's not why I'm reading the book. I also found his asset allocation strategy to be very... closed-minded. Maximum of 35% of a portfolio in any section? And a minimum of 10%? So I go 10% bonds, 10% REITs because I'm very young and want to max my stock contribution, but then I have 80% to split between US and international stocks, which I can't do because I max out at 35% per category. His only mention of how to allocate the percentages was to look at your risk factors and decide what you can stomach. So in conclusion, this book is all information you could find on various sites on the internet (though this is a very compact package of information) and targeted towards older, more conservative investors. His advice should not be followed by everyone, but his advice is sound and easily followed.

21 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kirk G Meyer

An eye opening book

Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2017

Verified Purchase

This book serves as an excellent tool to the world of investing in mutual funds. Written in plain English so that anyone who is interested in investing can understand what the author is saying. It also exposes the mutual fund business as one in which the investor is behind the eight ball so to speak. But it is a valuable reference for the average investor in today fund driven world.

One person found this helpful

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N. Weeds

A damning critique of the financial services industry

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 22, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is really two books in one. It offers strong advice on personal investing, and it is a damning critique of the financial services industry.

Swensen has an outstanding record as chief investment officer for the Yale endowment, which has shown strong returns from sophisticated investments. However, Swensen strongly advises that private investors take a very different approach, concentrating on core asset classes and using low cost passive funds. It's a convincing case, but one which is put much better in Tim Hale's book "Smarter Investing".

Swensen puts strong emphasis on alignment of interests between investors and those who sell or manage investments. It's an important point, and one that does apply to private investors as well as to sophisticated institutional investors.

The second half of the book is really a damning critique of the financial services industry. It's an eye-opener for the private investor. The abuses are pervasive and deeply embedded, and Swensen clearly believes that the financial services industry will always have the upper hand when it comes to exploiting private investors. Whilst the book focuses on the US, and the abuses might be different in the UK, it seems naive to think that the UK is really substantially better.

Overall this is not an easy read, though Swensen's mounting derision of the financial services industry does become amusing towards the end.

If you're after a guide to investing read Tim Hale's book instead - it's covers the same investment principles, and much more besides, in a much more readable style. If you know the basics and you want to go into investing with your eyes open to the exploitation you will face, read this.

9 people found this helpful

kareemsid

Brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 9, 2018

Verified Purchase

Quite possibly one of the finest books written on Personal Investing. As someone who has worked in professional/institutional investment management for 2 decades and read the vast majority of books on personal investing this has to be up there as a must-read for those with a basic knowledge of finance. Lucid, cogent, hard-hitting and realistic this book lays out the foundations for creating a robust, all-weather type of PA portfolio.

4 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

Perfect, thank you. No Issues to report

arup guha

Hats off to David Swanson

Reviewed in India on January 6, 2019

Verified Purchase

It takes a lot to impress me now with a book on investing. Both the number of books I have read and portfolio size have grown substantially. But this possibly is the best book on practical investing I have read so far. Every page has some insight, no part of the book is just coasting. Anyone who wants to invest his hard earned cash should read this book if its the only book on investing he reads. If he reads another one he should read Guy Pearse’s autobiography. But this should be the first. What a valuable contribution David swanson has made, deeply grateful to him

One person found this helpful

Cliente de Kindle

Debe ser leído por personas que buscan invertir a largo plazo

Reviewed in Mexico on September 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

Este libro contiene importantes consejos sobre estrategias de inversión a largo plazo. Por lo tanto recomendable para aquellas personas que buscan invertir para su retiro. Existen muchos términos técnicos que pueden ser entendidos mejor para personas que se dedican profesionalmente a finanzas. Para aquellos que no al final de cada capítulo existe un resumen explicado en palabras sencillas. Excelente libro y un gran trabajo del autor que busca alejar a los inversores comunes de prácticas establecidas por grandes empresas y fondos de inversión que dañan sus intereses.

2 people found this helpful

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