Hedge funds are typically thought of as highly risky investments. Not so. In fact, some hedge funds are among the most conservative investments you can make. While speculative, high-flying hedge funds make the headlines, others quietly go about the work of crafting unique investment strategies and hedging portfolios against market risk. This much-needed book shows why affluent investors who want to be financially secure through retirement should know about hedge funds. Its blend of facts, practical tips, and personal insights takes the mystery out of this often misunderstood investment vehicle and reveals the critical questions to ask before you invest. James P. Owen (Santa Barbara, CA) has more than 30 years of experience in the investment management industry and is Senior Vice President of Broadmark Asset Management. Previously he was President of JPO Inc. and a partner with NWQ Investment Management Company. He is co-founder of the Investment Management Consultant s Association (IMCA); author of the financial bestseller, The Prudent Investor: The Definitive Guide to Professional Investment Management; and was associate producer of the PBS television series,Beyond Wall Street: The Art of Investing

The first comprehensive guide to all types of alternative investments The Handbook of Alternative Investments is an indispensable working resource for investment managers, financial advisors, pension and endowment fund trustees, corporate treasurers, consultants, and estate planners. Authored by an all-star team of investment professionals and academics from across North America, the contributions featured in this groundbreaking guide were carefully selected. Darrell Jobman is a writer and editorial consultant in Deerfield, Illinois, dealing primarily with financial and futures markets. He is an acknowledged authority on derivative markets and has spent his career writing and publishing about them. He formerly was editor-in-chief of Futures Magazine and is currently a contributing editor. He has been an author, co-author, editor, or ghost-writer for a number of books, including The Handbook of Technical Analysis.

Investment professional Larry E. Swedroe describes the crucial difference between "active" and "passive" mutual funds, and tells you how you can win the investment game through long-term investments in such indexes as the S&P 500 instead of through the active buying and selling of stocks. A revised and updated edition of an investment classic, The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need remains clear, understandable, and effective. This edition contains a new chapter comparing index funds, ETFs, and passive asset class funds, an expanded section on portfolio care and maintenance, the addition of Swedroe's 15 Rules of Prudent Investing, and much more. In clear language, Swedroe shows how the newer index mutual funds out-earn, out-perform, and out-compound the older funds, and how to select a balance "passive" portfolio for the long hail that will repay you many times over. This indispensable book also provides you with valuable information about: - The efficiency of markets today - The five factors that determine expected returns of a balanced equity and fixed income portfolio - Important facts about volatility, return, and risk - Six steps to building a diversified portfolio using Modern Portfolio Theory - Implementing the winning strategy - and more.

"Timely and practical. This book brings the leading edge of investment information to the prudent investor in an understandable way." - Charles Schwab, Chairman, Charles Schwab Corporation. "to write a book like this on Modern Portfolio Theory and make it understandable would be a very difficult job. John Bowen went ahead and did it. Congratulations." - Merton Miller, Nobel Laureate in Economics. Individual investors today must fend for themselves as they seize control of their own portfolios. In this authoritative and ill-researched book, investors learn how to simply and effectively use popular asset allocation strategies - in combinations with mutual funds - to greatly increase their returns. The reader is walked step-by-step through a low-risk, high-return approach using model portfolios and case histories, plus timely information on emerging markets, tax-saving moves, annuity products, and more.

How to diagnose and monitor key hedge fund operational risks With the various scandals taking place with hedge funds, now more than ever, both financial and operational risks must be examined. Revealing how to effectively detect and evaluate often-overlooked operational risk factors in hedge funds, such as multi-jurisdictional regulatory coordination, organizational nesting, and vaporware, Hedge Fund Operational Due Diligence includes real-world examples drawn from the author's experiences dealing with the operational risks of a global platform of over 80 hedge funds, funds of hedge funds, private equity, and real estate managers.

Within this easy-to-use, need-to-know, no-frills guide to building financial well-being is advice for long-term wealth creation and happiness, without all the worries and fuss of stock pickers and day traders.

While hedge funds have been part and parcel of the global asset management landscape for well over fifty years, it is only relatively recently that they came to prominence as one of the fastest growing and most vigorous sub-sectors of the financial services industry. Despite their growing significance for global and European financial markets, hedge funds continue enjoying a sui generis regulatory status. The ongoing credit crisis and its lessons for the wisdom of unregulated or loosely regulated pockets of financial activity raise, with renewed urgency, the issue of deciding how long for the relative regulatory immunity of hedge funds is to be tolerated in the name of financial innovation. This well-thought-out book, the first of its kind in this particular field, examines the case for the European onshore hedge fund industry’s regulation, making concrete proposals for its normative future. Following a detailed account of the ‘established’ regulatory systems in Ireland and Luxembourg, as well as of the ‘emerging’ hedge fund jurisdictions in Italy, France, Spain and Germany, and of the regulatory treatment of hedge funds in the UK, this book examines to what extent the continuing exclusion of hedge funds from harmonized European regulation is defensible, whether their differences to traditional asset management products justify their distinct regulatory treatment and, ultimately, if their EU-wide regulation is possible and, if so, what form this should take. This book offers enormously valuable insights into all facets of the subject of the regulation of hedge funds, including: the legitimacy of the public policy interest in their activities; the conceptual underpinnings and systemic stability emphasis of a realistic hedge fund regulatory scheme; the main parameters of a workable onshore hedge fund regulatory framework; the role of investor protection and market integrity as part of a holistic hedge fund regulatory scheme; the possible use of the UCITS framework as a foundation for the EU-wide regulation of hedge funds; the MiFID’s impact on the regulatory future of the European hedge fund industry; existing cross-jurisdictional differences and similarities in the normative treatment of hedge funds within the EU; hitherto initiatives and recommendations of the Community institutions and bodies; and the need for more efficient co-operation and information-sharing arrangements amongst national supervisors for the monitoring of the cross-border risks inherent in the activities of hedge funds. As the first ever comprehensive account of the profile, main features and normative future of the contemporary global and European hedge fund markets – including a systematic inquiry into the conceptual underpinnings of hedge fund regulation and a detailed examination of the European hedge fund industry’s treatment under Community and domestic law – this book represents a major contribution to the literature on hedge funds and their regulation which, through its concrete proposals for the onshore industry’s regulation and its clear analysis of the conditions necessary for their implementation, should be of extraordinary value to policymakers, supervisors and academics alike.

"Timely and practical. This book brings the leading edge of investment information to the prudent investor in an understandable way." - Charles Schwab, Chairman, Charles Schwab Corporation. "to write a book like this on Modern Portfolio Theory and make it understandable would be a very difficult job. John Bowen went ahead and did it. Congratulations." - Merton Miller, Nobel Laureate in Economics. Individual investors today must fend for themselves as they seize control of their own portfolios. In this authoritative and well-researched book, investors learn how to simply and effectively use popular asset allocation strategies - in combinations with mutual funds - to greatly increase their returns. The reader is walked step-by-step through a low-risk, high-return approach using model portfolios and case histories, plus timely information on emerging markets, tax-saving moves, annuity products, and more.

A comprehensive look at hedge fund performance issues In Evaluating Hedge Fund Performance, Dr. Vinh Tran gives readers the information they need to construct an efficient hedge fund portfolio based on their own level of knowledge. From evaluating hedge funds to picking the winners, Dr. Tran covers some of the most important issues related to this flexible investment vehicle. Evaluating Hedge Fund Performance takes the standard hedge fund book to a new level by detailing how to manage the risk of hedge funds and offering the best methods to evaluate and monitor hedge funds. With strategy based on interviews and data from experts in the field, this book is a must-read for any investor or manager who is investing in hedge funds.

The era of buying and holding stocks is gone -- and will not return for some time. Now is the time to learn to target where the market is going to be, not where it has been, so you can invest successfully. Financial expert John Mauldin makes a powerful, almost irrefutable case regarding the future direction of the markets. He then details a new approach to investing that will allow you to adjust to the new reality of investing. You'll consider options beyond traditional stock portfolios as you learn to choose between the stable and secure investments that will enable you to profit in turbulent markets. Buy your copy of this must-read investment roadmap today.