Product Description

This is the all-in one guidebook for understanding - and profiting. It is from - today's most up-to-date, market-proven asset allocation strategies. All investing constitutes a trade-off between the returns you seek and the risks you are willing to take. Asset allocation involves the spreading of those risks in order to minimize their potential impact. Too often, however, even minor misuse of asset allocation principles can adversely affect portfolio performance - and lead advisors and investors to disregard the very tools they need to get their portfolios back on track. "The Art of Asset Allocation" is today's most comprehensive and hands-on guidebook for using asset allocation principles to dramatically improve the performance of virtually any portfolio.Written by one of today's top asset allocation practitioners and experts, it provides you with: a comprehensive explanation of the asset allocation process; clear, readily graspable diagrams and illustrations; step-by-step guidelines for choosing the best asset allocation strategies; descriptions of the risks and rewards of all the major asset classes; insights into behavioral influences on investors' decision-making; analysis of important asset allocation rebalancing techniques; detailed matrices and worksheets for determining optimal asset allocations; asset allocation can be used by anyone, regardless of background, to aim for successful returns and protect those returns in today's changing marketplace. Let "The Art of Asset Allocation" provide you with everything you need to make allocation a key part of your overall investment strategy, and reduce or eliminate costly shortfalls in both your short- and long-term portfolio performance."Unique in its coverage and innovativeness, "The Art of Asset Allocation" furnishes a comprehensive array of tools, charts, illustrations, matrices, worksheets, and practical guidance designed to illuminate: the basic principles of asset allocation; the mechanics of asset allocation; the behavioral underpinnings of asset allocation; the essential characteristics of each of the 16 major asset classes; a series of approaches to financial markets analysis; and matrices and worksheets designed to successfully carry out asset allocation on an ongoing basis...' - From the Foreword.Asset allocation has long been a popular tool among financial professionals for improving risk-adjusted return in all market environments. But new tools, asset classes, and approaches have profoundly transformed the allocation process, with critical implications for everyone from investors with relatively modest portfolios to high-asset individuals and professional advisors responsible for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. "The Art of Asset Allocation" details how you can use modern asset allocation concepts and tools to augment returns and control risks in every market climate - bull, bear, or non-trending.This all-encompassing book will provide you with the knowledge you need to most effectively employ modern asset allocation techniques, whether you are a newcomer to asset allocation and read the book from cover to cover or an experienced asset allocator seeking primarily to update your body of knowledge on the topic. In-depth treatment is given to all aspects of effective asset allocation, including: basic meanings, principles, and pathways of asset allocation; dozens of clear and insightful charts and illustrations; mechanics and frameworks of asset allocation; analyzing assets' rates of return and the behavioral underpinnings of asset allocation; essential risk and reward characteristics of each of the 16 major asset classes; a series of approaches to financial markets analysis and rebalancing; worksheets to profile the investor, the investment outlook, and potential investments; and, successful long-term investment performance is rarely a matter of luck or timing.Rather, it is a function of thoughtfully and prudently choosing a portfolio of investments to minimize risk while maximizing return, and strategically and tactically rebalancing assets to reflect changing markets, the creation of new asset classes, and the global investment outlook. In a logical and straightforward way, "The Art of Asset Allocation" can show you how to use asset allocation to improve your portfolio performance, regardless of your investment time frame or portfolio size, in every market environment.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #379457 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From the Publisher
A comprehensive guide to effective asset management in bull or bear markets.
 Clear explanation of the risks and rewards of asset allocation
 Comprehensive coverage of asset allocation models
 Effective strategies for determining asset allocation decision points
 How to identify investor behavior and how individual characteristics influence allocation
 Essential differences between tactical and strategic asset allocation as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each
 Various ways to take advantage of coupon and dividend reinvestments
 The best techniques for financial market analysis
 Numerous charts and graphs illustrating key points
 List of recommended resources for further information
 Glossary of terms
 Valuable web sites for asset allocation information and application
 Listing of annual and historical risk and return for the various asset classes

From the Back Cover

The All-in One Guidebook for Understanding--and Profiting From--Today's Most Up-to-Date, Market-Proven Asset Allocation Strategies

All investing constitutes a trade-off between the returns you seek and the risks you are willing to take. Asset allocation involves the spreading of those risks in order to minimize their potential impact. Too often, however, even minor misuse of asset allocation principles can adversely affect portfolio performance--and lead advisors and investors to disregard the very tools they need to get their portfolios back on track.

The Art of Asset Allocation is today's most comprehensive and hands-on guidebook for using asset allocation principles to dramatically improve the performance of virtually any portfolio. Written by one of today's top asset allocation practitioners and experts, it provides you with:

• A comprehensive explanation of the asset allocation process
• Clear, readily graspable diagrams and illustrations
• Step-by-step guidelines for choosing the best asset allocation strategies
• Descriptions of the risks and rewards of all the major asset classes
• Insights into behavioral influences on investors' decision-making
• Analysis of important asset allocation rebalancing techniques
• Detailed matrices and worksheets for determining optimal asset allocations

Asset allocation can be used by anyone, regardless of background, to aim for successful returns and protect those returns in today's changing marketplace. Let The Art of Asset Allocation provide you with everything you need to make allocation a key part of your overall investment strategy, and reduce or eliminate costly shortfalls in both your short- and long-term portfolio performance.

"Unique in its coverage and innovativeness, The Art of Asset Allocation furnishes a comprehensive array of tools, charts, illustrations, matrices, worksheets, and practical guidance designed to illuminate: (i) the basic principles of asset allocation; (ii) the mechanics of asset allocation, (iii) the behavioral underpinnings of asset allocation; (iv) the essential characteristics of each of the 16 major asset classes; (v) a series of approaches to financial markets analysis; and (vi) matrices and worksheets designed to successfully carry out asset allocation on an ongoing basis..."--From the Foreword

Asset allocation has long been a popular tool among financial professionals for improving risk-adjusted return in all market environments. But new tools, asset classes, and approaches have profoundly transformed the allocation process, with critical implications for everyone from investors with relatively modest portfolios to high-asset individuals and professional advisors responsible for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Art of Asset Allocation details how you can use modern asset allocation concepts and tools to augment returns and control risks in every market climate--bull, bear, or non-trending. This all-encompassing book will provide you with the knowledge you need to most effectively employ modern asset allocation techniques, whether you are a newcomer to asset allocation and read the book from cover to cover or an experienced asset allocator seeking primarily to update your body of knowledge on the topic. In-depth treatment is given to all aspects of effective asset allocation, including:

• Basic meanings, principles, and pathways of asset allocation
• Dozens of clear and insightful charts and illustrations
• Mechanics and frameworks of asset allocation
• Analyzing assets' rates of return and the behavioral underpinnings of asset allocation
• Essential risk and reward characteristics of each of the 16 major asset classes
• A series of approaches to financial markets analysis and rebalancing
• Worksheets to profile the investor, the investment outlook, and potential investments

Successful long-term investment performance is rarely a matter of luck or timing. Rather, it is a function of thoughtfully and prudently choosing a portfolio of investments to minimize risk while maximizing return, and strategically and tactically rebalancing assets to reflect changing markets, the creation of new asset classes, and the global investment outlook. In a logical and straightforward way, The Art of Asset Allocation can show you how to use asset allocation to improve your portfolio performance, regardless of your investment time frame or portfolio size, in every market environment.

About the Author

David Darst is a CFA Charterholder, a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, a Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer for Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, with responsibility for asset allocation and investment strategy, and was the founding President of the Morgan Stanley Investment Group. A highly sought speaker, Darst also wrote The Complete Bond Book and The Handbook of the Bond and Money Markets. A graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School, where he has served as a visiting faculty member, Darst has authored numerous articles which have appeared in financial publications including Barron's, Euromoney, and The Money Manager.

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Customer Reviews

Terrible book, don't waste your money
This book is to asset allocation and finance as metaphysics is to philosophy: much complicated ado that ultimately is of little use.

I was really looking forward to reading this book by David Darst, which I had bought at the same time as Richard Ferri's All About Asset Allocation. The contrast between the two could not be greater. Ferri is excellent, as I have written in another review. Darst displays the worst of financial writing - dense, boring sentences, superfluous numbers and tables, chart junk illustrations, endless checklists, non-actionable general recommendations and worst of all, radical departures from financial theory that will get an investor into trouble - I refer to tactical asset allocation, which is nothing more than market timing in disguise. A little less "art" and a little more "science" in asset allocation is what we individual investors need.

Consider that the book has no footnotes, no references or reading lists - as if Darst's exposition is self-sufficient. What serious book on finance could be presented so? On the other hand, Darst does take time to say, "Of particular value have been the advice and counsel provided by: ...", followed by four and half pages of names, which I guesstimate is over 600 people. Really?! 600 people? One looks in vain for financial luminaries such as Fama, French, Markowitz, Sharpe, Miller, Modigliani, Brinson, Ibbotson etc. Such names are hardly mentioned in the text itself.

The hilarious epitome of useless complication is the chart on page xiii, a series of circles within circles with overlapping wheels, which shows an alternative sequence of reading the chapters. I would suggest an author's task is to simplify for the reader and present the material in one logical sequence of chapters, not complicate matters as he has.

This book doesn't help Mr. Average Investor at all. The net effect of trying to read the book for an average investor would be to feel that asset allocation is such an esoteric and arcane subject that only someone like Darst or Morgan Stanley (Darst's employer) could possibly do it.

Insightful!
Decades of research by scholars and financial practitioners have generally supported the reasonable counsel “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” But it is one thing to advise investors to diversify, and another to show them how. Author David M. Darst outlines a systematic approach to parceling out your savings among different investment assets. There’s a science to asset allocation, though its principles are not immediately apparent. Darst treats these precepts with admirable thoroughness in a book that is, mostly, accessible to an educated layperson. But brew some strong coffee. Readers lacking a business or finance background may find the theoretical discussion difficult and tedious, particularly given the deliberate style. However this 2003 book follows one of the most dramatic periods in stock market history, the 1990s, when even sophisticated market watchers wondered if the sound financial principles cited here still applied. The ensuing bear market made it clear that the laws of risk and return had not yet been repealed. In this atmosphere, We welcome this solid explanation of risk and return.

Insightful!
This interesting book traces the history and development of corporations from the time of Queen Elizabeth I to the present day. Much of the book focuses on little-known episodes in the corporate chronicle — the cruel Jamestown settlement in Virginia, for example, or the British East India Company’s depredations in India. About midway through, the book shifts from such tales to a close examination of Supreme Court justices who tilted the playing field in favor of corporate power. Breezily written and accessible, this book puts a lengthy and complicated history easily within reach of ordinary readers. Its bias is clear — the subtitle leaves no doubt that author Ted Nace is a foe of corporate power — and the closer to the present the story comes, the more accusatory the author’s conclusions may seem. Nonetheless, We find this is a worthwhile read for those who seek background information on the dark side of the American corporate success story.