The gold standard for measuring financial progress, updated for today's market From Ross Levin, a trusted financial planner, comes Implementing the Wealth Management Index. The new edition of the book Investment Advisor called a "landmark opus," this revised and updated volume expands upon his legendary Wealth Management Index tool. A benchmark system that, through a series of questions and evaluations, enables advisors to score their performance for individual clients, the tool is used by firms around the world. In this new edition, the index looks at asset protection, disability and income protection, debt management, investment planning, and estate planning. The new edition adds more how-to information, as well as actual client examples and case studies to show how Levin's firm successfully uses the index as a daily strategy. Asks the important questions, like "Did you use all reasonable means to reduce your taxes?" and "Have you established and funded all the necessary trusts? Have you made your desired gifts for this year? Newly revised and expanded for the first time since 1997 Essential guidance from a top man in the game, Implementing the Wealth Management Index is the one-stop resource for measuring client financial progress.

The gold standard for measuring financial progress, updated for today's market From Ross Levin, a trusted financial planner, comes Implementing the Wealth Management Index. The new edition of the book Investment Advisor called a "landmark opus," this revised and updated volume expands upon his legendary Wealth Management Index tool. A benchmark system that, through a series of questions and evaluations, enables advisors to score their performance for individual clients, the tool is used by firms around the world. In this new edition, the index looks at asset protection, disability and income protection, debt management, investment planning, and estate planning. The new edition adds more how-to information, as well as actual client examples and case studies to show how Levin's firm successfully uses the index as a daily strategy. Asks the important questions, like "Did you use all reasonable means to reduce your taxes?" and "Have you established and funded all the necessary trusts? Have you made your desired gifts for this year? Newly revised and expanded for the first time since 1997 Essential guidance from a top man in the game, Implementing the Wealth Management Index is the one-stop resource for measuring client financial progress.

Because wealth management encompasses a variety of disciplines--the management of personal risks, prudent investing, reduction of income taxes, and ensuring appropriate estate distribution--traditional performance measures are misleading and ineffective. In this landmark book, Ross Levin presents the Wealth Management Index T M, an innovative tool for financial advisors to quantify their clients' success in financial planning. The index helps financial advisors establish rational goals with their clients and measure their progress toward achieving goals. Wealth Management Index includes: Guidelines and strategies for determining your clients' unique needs; A detailed discussion of each section of the index--asset protection, disability and income protection, debt management, investment and cash flow planning, and estate distribution; Step-by-step procedures on how to implement The Wealth Management Index TuM in a financial planning practice.

Our goal in writing this book is to give you the tools you need to make smarter financial decisions and avoid the mistakes that too often trip up investors.

An accessible guide that outlines the key elements of an effective financial plan From Larry Swedroe, the author of the bestselling series of "The Only Guide" investment books, with Kevin Grogan and Tiya Lim comes a step-by-step handbook that shows you how to develop a winning personal investment strategy and reveals what it takes to make that strategy part of your overall financial plan. The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan focuses on the "art" of investing and gives you the information you need to create a strategy that is tailor-made for your particular situation. Designed for savvy investors and professional advisors, this book offers the vital information needed for developing and implementing an overall strategic financial plan. In this essential resource, Swedroe outlines the basics in asset allocation and other investment planning concepts. Addresses how you can design an investment policy statement and an individual asset allocation plan Examines how to maintain your portfolio's risk profile in the most cost-effective and tax-efficient manner Offers insights on integrating risk management and estate planning issues into your plan The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan offers a handy tool to help you make more informed and prudent decisions that will go a long way to ensure a secure financial future.

A leading financial adviser offers a groundbreaking and simple approach to tackling personal finance by breaking down formulas used by the most successful businesses. A troubled economy calls for answers. People need sound, easy-to-follow financial advice that can be implemented immediately. For the first time, a leading financial adviser has developed a remarkable set of guidelines to give individuals the same kind of objective insight into their personal finances that successful businesses have. Your Money Ratios will help readers effectively manage debt, invest prudently, and develop a realistic and effective savings plan to ensure both financial success and security. Readers need only plug their income and age into Farrell's ratios to get an instant picture of their savings status and overall financial health, as well as a road map for the important choices for the future. Some key ratios include: ? The Capital-to-Income Ratio: how much capital (savings) you should have if you plan to retire at 65 ? The Mortgage-to-Income Ratio: the maximum mortgage debt you should carry and still have sufficient capital left for comfortable savings ? The Education-to-Average-Income Ratio: the amount of education- related debt you can safely incur based on anticipated average earnings after obtaining your degree

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.

In spite of theoretical benefits, Markowitz mean-variance (MV) optimized portfolios often fail to meet practical investment goals of marketability, usability, and performance, prompting many investors to seek simpler alternatives. Financial experts Richard and Robert Michaud demonstrate that the limitations of MV optimization are not the result of conceptual flaws in Markowitz theory but unrealistic representation of investment information. What is missing is a realistic treatment of estimation error in the optimization and rebalancing process. The text provides a non-technical review of classical Markowitz optimization and traditional objections. The authors demonstrate that in practice the single most important limitation of MV optimization is oversensitivity to estimation error. Portfolio optimization requires a modern statistical perspective. Efficient Asset Management, Second Edition uses Monte Carlo resampling to address information uncertainty and define Resampled Efficiency (RE) technology. RE optimized portfolios represent a new definition of portfolio optimality that is more investment intuitive, robust, and provably investment effective. RE rebalancing provides the first rigorous portfolio trading, monitoring, and asset importance rules, avoiding widespread ad hoc methods in current practice. The Second Edition resolves several open issues and misunderstandings that have emerged since the original edition. The new edition includes new proofs of effectiveness, substantial revisions of statistical estimation, extensive discussion of long-short optimization, and new tools for dealing with estimation error in applications and enhancing computational efficiency. RE optimization is shown to be a Bayesian-based generalization and enhancement of Markowitz's solution. RE technology corrects many current practices that may adversely impact the investment value of trillions of dollars under current asset management. RE optimization technology may also be useful in other financial optimizations and more generally in multivariate estimation contexts of information uncertainty with Bayesian linear constraints. Michaud and Michaud's new book includes numerous additional proposals to enhance investment value including Stein and Bayesian methods for improved input estimation, the use of portfolio priors, and an economic perspective for asset-liability optimization. Applications include investment policy, asset allocation, and equity portfolio optimization. A simple global asset allocation problem illustrates portfolio optimization techniques. A final chapter includes practical advice for avoiding simple portfolio design errors. With its important implications for investment practice, Efficient Asset Management 's highly intuitive yet rigorous approach to defining optimal portfolios will appeal to investment management executives, consultants, brokers, and anyone seeking to stay abreast of current investment technology. Through practical examples and illustrations, Michaud and Michaud update the practice of optimization for modern investment management.

Like other fragile sub-Saharan African countries, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are seeking to harness their natural resource potential in the context of ambitious development strategies. This study investigates options for scaling up public investment and expanding social safety nets in a general equilibrium setting. First, it assesses the macro-fiscal implications of alternative fiscal rules for public investment, and, second, it explicitly accounts for redistribution through direct cash transfers. Results show that a sustainable non-resource deficit target is robust to the high uncertainty of resources output and prices, while delivering growth benefits through higher public investment. The scaling-up magnitudes, however, depend on the size of projected resource revenue and absorptive capacity. Adding a social transfer raises private consumption, suggesting that a fraction of the resource revenue could be used to expand safety nets.

Sveiby offers practical advice on how to manage knowledge companies - such as accounting firms, management consulting firms, advertising agencies and computer consultants - and their employees