Invest Like An Institution

All too often, when investors go in search of investment advice, they are met with television personalities and so-called investment “gurus” who do little more than push the latest and greatest scheme to retire rich. Your retirement funds—in the form of IRAs, 401(k)s, SEP or Simple IRAs, and other plans you can direct to some degree—are, however, far too precious to bet on the latest scheme, trend, or tip you heard at a party. In Invest Like an Institution: Professional Strategies for Funding a Successful Retirement, Michael Schlachter provides individual investors with the tools they need to build a portfolio that not only protects their wealth but helps it grow for the long term. Result? A comfortable retirement in which you can pursue your dreams and check “bucket list” items off at your leisure. As an advisor to large pension funds and endowments, Michael Schlachter counts among his clients the elite. Institutional investors like the retirement systems of states and major companies, as well as the largest university endowments, are among the few that consistently outperform the market. Sure, average retail investors can't make the same types of private deals in real estate, private equity, or hedge funds that institutional investors use to reap large returns or offset market volatility. But as this book demonstrates, you can replicate in your own portfolio the very same diversification strategies that large funds employ to achieve long-term gains. To that end, Invest Like an Institution shows how to build a portfolio that is every bit as diversified and risk-controlled as a multi-billion-dollar institutional fund—and a portfolio more likely to result in a happy, financially secure retirement. Filled with easy-to-implement guidelines that will put you on the path to financial success without encouraging you to chase trends, take on unneeded risks, or spend unnecessary fees, Invest Like an Institution analyzes: Why asset allocation and consistent retirement contributions are the single largest determinant of your success or failure The merits of a global portfolio versus those of a home country–biased portfolio How newer investment strategies are used by institutional investors to supplement a well-diversified portfolio Why fixed income investments are not as safe as most investors think and how to understand their role in your portfolio The best alternative asset classes that are readily available to individual investors Invest Like an Institution will help ensure that your investments are positioned for long-term growth under any market conditions. Follow its advice, and you can better achieve a prime goal we all share: retiring with a substantial nest egg.

An informative look at institutional investment management methods and practice The policies, practices, and decisions of institutional investment managers worldwide affect the economic health of not only the institutions themselves, but of countless individual clients as well. Overall, this area of finance has great impact on the capital markets. Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, Institutional Money Management is an important basis of knowledge regarding both the theory and practice of this ever-evolving area of finance. Part of the Robert W. Kolb Series in Finance, this book on institutional investment management showcases contributed chapters from professional and academic experts in banking, insurance companies, mutual funds, pension funds, and endowments. Along the way, issues covered included everything from the role of institutional investors within the financial system and the structures that have emerged and evolved to industry standards of ethical practice and investment performance presentation. Provides a detailed examination of the objectives, constraints, methods, and stakeholders for the dominant types of institutional investors Focuses on the portfolio management strategies and techniques used by institutional investors Contains contributed chapters from numerous thought-leaders in the field of finance The practice of institutional investment management presents a diverse set of challenges. But with this book as your guide, you'll gain a better understanding of how you can overcome these challenges and manage your portfolio more effectively.

In the years since the now-classic Pioneering Portfolio Management was first published, the global investment landscape has changed dramatically -- but the results of David Swensen's investment strategy for the Yale University endowment have remained as impressive as ever. Year after year, Yale's portfolio has trumped the marketplace by a wide margin, and, with over $20 billion added to the endowment under his twenty-three-year tenure, Swensen has contributed more to Yale's finances than anyone ever has to any university in the country. What may have seemed like one among many success stories in the era before the Internet bubble burst emerges now as a completely unprecedented institutional investment achievement. In this fully revised and updated edition, Swensen, author of the bestselling personal finance guide Unconventional Success, describes the investment process that underpins Yale's endowment. He provides lucid and penetrating insight into the world of institutional funds management, illuminating topics ranging from asset-allocation structures to active fund management. Swensen employs an array of vivid real-world examples, many drawn from his own formidable experience, to address critical concepts such as handling risk, selecting advisors, and weathering market pitfalls. Swensen offers clear and incisive advice, especially when describing a counterintuitive path. Conventional investing too often leads to buying high and selling low. Trust is more important than flash-in-the-pan success. Expertise, fortitude, and the long view produce positive results where gimmicks and trend following do not. The original Pioneering Portfolio Management outlined a commonsense template for structuring a well-diversified equity-oriented portfolio. This new edition provides fund managers and students of the market an up-to-date guide for actively managed investment portfolios.

As you have probably noticed, there are quite a few investing books out there. Many of them were written by some of the world's greatest investors. So, why should you read our book? Stock investing is more prevalent than ever, whether directly or indirectly through brokerage accounts, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, or retirement plans. Despite this, the vast majority of individual investors have no training on how to pick stocks. And, until now, there hasn't been a truly accessible, easy-to-understand resource available to help them. The Little Book of Investing Like the Pros was written to fill this void. We believe the simplicity and accessibility of our stock picking framework is truly unique. Using real-world examples and actual Wall Street models used by the pros, we teach you how to pick stocks in a highly accessible, step-by-step manner. Our goal is straightforward—to impart the skills necessary for finding high-quality stocks while protecting your portfolio with risk management best practices. Our practical approach is designed to help demystify the investing process, which can be intimidating. This training will help set you apart from others who are largely flying blind. Pilots require extensive training before receiving a license. Doctors must graduate medical school, followed by a multi-year residency. Even those providing professional investment advice require certification. But, anyone can buy a stock without any training whatsoever. While buying stocks on a hunch and a prayer may not endanger your life, it can certainly put your finances at risk.

Today institutional investors dominate the stock market. They hold assets valued at about 6.5 trillion - almost one fifth of the country's financial assets. Furthermore, institutional investors now own well over half of the stock in the country's 100 largest corporations, including such flagship companies as IBM, GE, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil. Because of the tremendous influence institutional investors have on American corporations, business and government policymakers must make assumptions about how and why they make decisions - their priorities, motives, and concerns. In addition, anyone who markets to institutional investors needs to know what makes them tick. Sprinkled with candid and often colorful quotations from a variety of investment insiders, Fortune and Folly gives you a unique look at what really happens on Wall Street; facts that challenge the assumptions routinely made about the economic motivations of business behavior; new insights on pension safety and possible political influences; and economic analyses by Carolyn K. Brancato, the country's foremost expert on the economics of institutional investing.

This survey examines the vibrant academic literature on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing. While there is no consensus on the exact list of ESG issues, responsible investors increasingly assess stocks in their portfolios based on nonfinancial data on environmental impact (e.g., carbon emissions), social impact (e.g., employee satisfaction), and governance attributes (e.g., board structure). The objective is to reduce exposure to investments that pose greater ESG risks or to influence companies to become more sustainable. One active area of research at present involves assessing portfolio risk exposure to climate change. This literature review focuses on institutional investors, which have grown in importance such that they have now become the largest holders of shares in public companies globally. Historically, institutional investors tended to concentrate their ESG efforts mostly on corporate governance (the “G” in ESG). These efforts included seeking to eliminate provisions that restrict shareholder rights and enhance managerial power, such as staggered boards, supermajority rules, golden parachutes, and poison pills. Highlights from this section: · There is no consensus on the exact list of ESG issues and their materiality. · The ESG issue that gets the most attention from institutional investors is climate change, in particular their portfolio companies’ exposure to carbon risk and “stranded assets.” · Investors should be positioning themselves for increased regulation, with the regulatory agenda being more ambitious in the European Union than in the United States. Readers might come away from this survey skeptical about the potential for ESG investing to affect positive change. I prefer to characterize the current state of the literature as having a “healthy dose of skepticism,” with much more remaining to be explored. Here, I hope the reader comes away with a call to action. For the industry practitioner, I believe that the investment industry should strive to achieve positive societal goals. CFA Institute provides an exemplary case in its Future of Finance series (www.cfainstitute.org/research/future-finance). For the academic community, I suggest we ramp up research aimed at tackling some of the open questions around the pressing societal goals of ESG investing. I am optimistic that practitioners and academics will identify meaningful ways to better harness the power of global financial markets for addressing the pressing ESG issues facing our society.

It's time to make money and give a damn You give a damn, right? You want your money to do good, but your pension is riddled with oil and defense companies. Besides, investing is a pain in the ass. It's tedious, and most sustainable and responsible investing books are as much fun as a root canal. You're fighting the urge to bury your head in the sand. What to do? There is a better way. Invest Like You Give a Damn is a different kind of investment book. It tells real life stories of people just like you. People who give a damn but who have stomped the devil of inertia and chosen to align their money with their values. Coverage includes: Why you need to give a damn about your investments Engaging investor stories to guide financial planning and investment decisions A ground-breaking financial and socially responsible investing asset allocation tool for profit and sustainability impact maximization Money makeover profiles How-to investing from one-click to deep-dive portfolio building Authored by a leading socially responsible investing expert and replete with humor and irreverence, Invest Like You Give a Damn is for everyone from college graduates waiting tables, to mid-life generation Xers, to baby boomers who want to live their ideals. Get it, read it, give a damn! Marc de Sousa-Shields is co-founder of the Social Investment Organization (SIO), a UN and World Bank advisor, and contributor to online corporate sustainability magazines including Triple Pundit and Sustainable Brands . He's worked in eighty countries, blogs at The Sustainable Century, and when not on the road, he lives in Mexico.

The author of Pioneering Portfolio Management shows individuals how to avoid the for-profit mutual fund industry and get better returns on their money. In Unconventional Success, investment legend and bestselling author 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. “Reveals why the mutual fund industry as a whole does a disservice to the individual investor.” —Booklist “What he has to say is worth listening to.” —The New York Times

Alternative Investments: A Primer for Investment Professionals provides an overview of alternative investments for institutional asset allocators and other overseers of portfolios containing both traditional and alternative assets. It is designed for those with substantial experience regarding traditional investments in stocks and bonds but limited familiarity regarding alternative assets, alternative strategies, and alternative portfolio management. The primer categorizes alternative assets into four groups: hedge funds, real assets, private equity, and structured products/derivatives. Real assets include vacant land, farmland, timber, infrastructure, intellectual property, commodities, and private real estate. For each group, the primer provides essential information about the characteristics, challenges, and purposes of these institutional-quality alternative assets in the context of a well-diversified institutional portfolio. Other topics addressed by this primer include tail risk, due diligence of the investment process and operations, measurement and management of risks and returns, setting return expectations, and portfolio construction. The primer concludes with a chapter on the case for investing in alternatives.

The guide for investors who want a better understanding of investment strategies that have stood the test of time This thoroughly revised and updated edition of Investment Philosophies covers different investment philosophies and reveal the beliefs that underlie each one, the evidence on whether the strategies that arise from the philosophy actually produce results, and what an investor needs to bring to the table to make the philosophy work. The book covers a wealth of strategies including indexing, passive and activist value investing, growth investing, chart/technical analysis, market timing, arbitrage, and many more investment philosophies. Presents the tools needed to understand portfolio management and the variety of strategies available to achieve investment success Explores the process of creating and managing a portfolio Shows readers how to profit like successful value growth index investors Aswath Damodaran is a well-known academic and practitioner in finance who is an expert on different approaches to valuation and investment This vital resource examines various investing philosophies and provides you with helpful online resources and tools to fully investigate each investment philosophy and assess whether it is a philosophy that is appropriate for you.