The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan

Among my books is a trilogy of "Only Guides" written to help you understand the science of investing:

• One for stocks
• One for bonds
• One for alternative investments

This "Only Guide," written with my Buckingham Asset Management colleagues Kevin Grogan and Tiya Lim, addresses a wide range of investment issues. For example, who should consider owning more small-cap stocks, value stocks and emerging market stocks, and who should consider owning less of them? It also addresses the often-overlooked subjects of asset location (as opposed to allocation), withdrawal strategies in retirement and when and how to take Social Security benefits. Most importantly, it will help you integrate other financial issues into an overall financial plan. Having a well-thought-out investment plan is a necessary condition for success, not a sufficient one. The sufficient condition is integrating the investment plan into a well-thought-out estate, tax and risk management plan.

Because investing is more art than science, this guide is not meant to provide hard-and-fast rules. While a physicist can measure the speed of light to the fourth decimal place with minimal estimation error, even the most fervent finance professor knows that such precision is impossible in investment theory. Investors and advisors alike must accept that they will never know, ex-ante, the optimal allocation to international investments or how much an investor's portfolio should tilt toward value stocks or small-cap stocks. In most cases, all they can be sure of is that they are in the ballpark. This book is a tool to help you make prudent decisions, remembering prudence is determined not by the outcome, but by the process.

The Only Guide You'll Ever Need for the Right Financial Plan is available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders.