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Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment Hardcover – August 9, 2005

by David F. Swensen (Author)

144 customer reviews

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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.

Unconventional Success: A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment

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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

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Product details

Hardcover: 403 pages
Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (August 9, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743228383
ISBN-13: 978-0743228381
Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.3 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 144 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,103 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #15 in Books > Business & Money > Taxation > Personal
- #57 in Books > Business & Money > Personal Finance > Retirement Planning
- #102 in Books > Business & Money > Accounting

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

ByAmazon Customeron February 14, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified 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.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

An eye opening book

ByKirk G Meyeron March 1, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified 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.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Written by someone who actually does, instead of talks about doing.

Bydcamncon August 26, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

There are of course many investment books out there, but most are written by armchair quarterbacks, so to speak. Swensen is the real deal; he has been the Chief Investment Officer at Yale since 1985, in charge of Yale's multi billion dollar endowment. I'll trust my future to someone who actually does, instead of a writer that talks about doing, thank you very much. Swensen's sample "lazy" portfolio always does well in backtesting; routinely producing better returns than many other lazy portfolios out there. This book isn't the easiest read, but it's not mega technical either; some books go overboard with technicalities, and the message gets lost in the details, not so here. Highly recommend.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

An In-Depth Look for the More-Interested Investor

ByS. Rylanderon May 6, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

While this is an excellent book, I knocked off a star for one main reason: I believe it to be a little too advanced to be called "fundamental."

This is the perfect book for a person with two critical attributes:

1) You have already read Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street"
2) You are looking to go beyond a employer-sponsored defined contribution plan and would like some help determining who gets your money.

I say read Malkiel first because having an understanding of the Efficient Market Hypothesis will help you get a lot more out of reading this book. While Swensen presents an excellent work, it is a bit dry and academic. If, however, you can commit to reading it carefully, I am confident you will be a better money manager for it.

Since an individual employee has little control over the firm chosen to administer the company 401(k), I believe this book to be less helpful than "A Random Walk" if you are simply seeking guidance for selecting investments in a defined plan. If, however, you are about to open your own IRA or a standard, taxable account, this book will serve as an invaluable guide.

Stick with it, and happy investing!

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Best Book on Personal Investment This Decade

ByS. F. Woiton March 29, 2006

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is the best primer on personal investment strategy that I have read in the last ten years. Could only have been written by someone with Swensen's credentials who is totally unbeholden to the mutual fund companies and other financial services players who are systematically bilking small investors through high fee, high risk investment strategies that do not pay off for the investor in the long term.

Swensen's advice is sound, based on proven portfolio management principles, battle-tested via Yale's global endowment, one of the largest and most sophisticated investors of our time. The chapters on the proper use of ETFs- exchange traded funds- in a personal investment portfolio are worth the purchase price alone.

Of course, most investors will never take the time to read and reflect on a book like this--but you should! Just don't count on your mutual fund company to tell you about it!

0Comment 22 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Success The Unconventional Way

ByJohn N. Dimlingon November 4, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

David Swensen has done a magnificant service to the individual investor by writing this book. He explains all of the undisclosed charges that are hidden within actively managed mutual funds and gives two examples of not-for-profit mutual fund families who are investor friendly. One happens to be The Vanguard Group with its index funds that he recommends because of their low fees. David Swensen's reputation as a premier money manager is due to his excellent record at Yale managing their endowment for over twenty years with an average return of better than 16 percent. After reading this book you will not want to trust your money to another for-profit mutual fund company but instead invest in index funds or ETFs for the next 20-30 years. As for ETFs, he also explains how most have drifted off course through the years and no longer deliver good value. He suggests sticking with the core ETF's and he explains which ones those are along with their expenses.

I would recommend this book to anyone who values his or her money and wants to retain the most of it when investing it in the "MARKET".

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Great Book for Investors

ByProf. Buckon September 23, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Every average investor needs to read this book that simplifies the concept of asset allocation. Simple advise is given to everyday people about how to avoid high fees charged by the financial services industry. Swenson's thoughts on investing in index mutual funds needs to be considered by all long term investors. Should be on ever investor's bookshelf.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Scathing - nobody is spared

ByFranz K.on November 25, 2007

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Swensen takes aim at EVERYBODY in the money game. Even Vanguard is pilloried.
Agency conflicts are the focus of under-performance, and this can only be reconciled by managers who demonstrate clearly that they choose to act in the interests of their clients, even to the detriment of their own business.
Given this intensely rigid standard, almost no going concern in the money management game would pass the test.
Swensen's disdain for corporate debt is revisted here. With the informational assymetry existing between investor and issuer, it is very hard to win on a risk adjsuted basis, he claims. Ratings more often go down than up, and there is no where to go from AAA.
A worthwile read, but something of a rehash of previous work.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

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Most recent customer reviews

Investment Lessons from An Inventor of the Endowment Model

I highly recommend this book to institutional and, especially, individual investors. By reading this excellent book, the investors would learn ideas from David Swensen, an...Read more

Published 1 month ago by Vitaly Veksler

) I loved the format and layout

Got it at the library, sorry Amazon, you have too much money:) The reason this book has 4 stars instead of 5 is all the reviews written by those in the financial services industry...Read more

Published 1 month ago by Lola Jones

Out of date, but worth the reading for the concepts presented.

Published 4 months ago by Fernando Lameirinhas

Five Stars

Great book.

Published 8 months ago by Amazon Customer

Great book

This informative and hard hitting book is an absolute must for the serious investor. It deserves to be re -read from time to time because of its pearls.

Published 9 months ago by john Shelton

Average Joe trying to enjoy a book on the fundamental approach to personal investmen

I'm sure there are some amazing fundamental investment facts in this book. However, for me, it was just a very boring book to read.Read more

Published 10 months ago by Amazon Customer

Great read

Eye opening book on investing with some inherent opinion bias on indexes, but overall an amazing read for me! Thanks

Published 11 months ago by Neil D Leston

This is THE one book that you need to buy about investing your own money.

This is a great book for someone who wants to manage their own portfolio. It is not an easy read because it's more like a textbook than an "Investing for Dummies" type of...Read more

Published 1 year ago by Chris D

Great book, but definitely targeted at older beginners

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...Read more

Published 1 year ago by Simon Swanson

Required reading for all consumers

Lifting the lid on the investment management industry. Useful advice on asset allocation. Highly recommended for anyone of any age!

Published 1 year ago by Siddharth N Jha

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