Product Description

The fully revised classic on employing asset allocation techniques to grow real wealth

A global leader and preeminent expert in asset allocation, David Darst delivers his masterwork on the topic. In a fully updated and expanded second edition of The Art of Asset Allocation, Morgan Stanley's Chief Investment Strategist covers the historic market events, instruments, asset classes, and economic forces that investors need to be aware of as they create asset-building portfolios. He then explains how to use modern asset allocation concepts and tools to augment returns and control risks in a wide range of financial market environments. This completely revised edition shows how to achieve asset balance with the author's proven methods, decades of expertise, relevant charts, practical tools, and astute analyses.

Known as the king of asset allocation, Darst brings his expertise to bear to provide complete asset class descriptions, identifying historical risk, return, and correlation characteristics for all major asset classes. Using actual data, he explains the differences between tactical and strategic asset allocation, outlines clear rebalancing guidelines, and includes an annotated guide to both traditional and Internet-based information sources.

Praise for the first edition:

“You want to be a better investor, a better client, or a better advisor? DEVOUR THIS BOOK NOW!”-James J. Cramer

“David Darst is the expert on Asset Allocation. He has chosen to share his decades of practical experience in The Art of Asset Allocation, to the benefit of professional and individual investors alike.”-Seth A. Klarman

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #257558 in Books
• Published on: 2008-05-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780071592949
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

David M. Darst is a Managing Director and the Chief Investment Strategist for Morgan Stanley's Global Wealth Management division, as well as a CFA charterholder and a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts. A highly sought-after international speaker, Darst is the author of Mastering the Art of Asset Allocation, The Complete Bond Book, and The Handbook of the Bond and Money Markets.

Customer Reviews

Excellent, for the most part
The first one half or one third of the book is worth the full price. I found the last parts (about the last few chapters) to be somewhat boring. The book should be quite useful for any investor who desires to utilize the method of asset allocations among a most diverse asset classes. The author is clearly a very thoughtful thinker who appears to be a master in the field. He outlays the theory of asset allocation, explains features of most possible class assets, how they interact with each other, how they may react to different economic environment, and how to implement the act of balancing and so on. This is a great book for the serious, long term investor who is not interested in short term trades, but is planning to have a life-long plan based on science, sound theory, not based on media excitement. The only drawback I saw was a boring style of writing that emerged, for some unclear reason, at the end. I found in the last few chapters that too much was written to explain obvious issues, with little interesting facts. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the bulk of the book and recommend it highly.

Insights here available via half-hour of Google search on "AA"
This book contains trite, under-grad finance level coursework material that has been around
for 20-30 years ... the basic concepts presented here can be understood after
a half-hour of google-searches on `asset allocation'.

You would get better guidance in these marginal insights by subscribing
to AAII.

Darst never discusses his own asset allocation decision-making process; he simply recites
widely known asset allocation concepts.

Darst , in writing this book, clearly illustrates a risk investors need to be aware of ,
that of being wary of Wall St. executives whose egos are stoked by wealth generated by
earning bid/ask spreads and fees with little correlation to subsequent out-performance over
decades. I am sure Darst has smooth social and political skills,
just do not mistake that for any substantive insight in asset allocation , he fails to communicate
how serious money managers handle asset allocation risk.

Good primer on asset allocation and Behavior Finance
A little background on myself. I have read over 200 books on investing. I am a believer in using low cost index funds in a diversified portfolio. I also believe in buy and hold with regards to asset allocation. I believe in re-balancing the portfolio, but only annually.

In the preface section of the book, the author shows recent data (number of households and their investable asset levels) that proves once again that Pareto's law is still alive and well. Pareto studied income and wealth distribution in several European countries around 1900. He found that 20% of the citizens owned 80% of the income or wealth. This is often called Pareto's Law or the 80:20 Rule. The author's recent data showed that in the US, 16% of the households own 80% of the wealth.......very close to Pareto's 20% of the households own 80% of the wealth.

This book does a good job of explaining the concept of asset allocation. Since I am not a believer in market timing (I am a buy and hold investor), I really have no use for the Tactical asset allocation portion of the book.

I was surprised of how extensive the author wrote about the impact of behavioral finance on investor behavior. I really liked some of the charts in the book that the author developed to explain the various aspects of behavioral finance.

The author also does a good job of showing the impact of re-balancing the portfolio.

All-in-all, a very good primer on asset allocation. I enjoyed the behavioral finance charts in the book.

For more information about behavioral finance, I recommend Pompian's book Behavioral Finance and Wealth Management over Jason Zweig's Your Money and Your Brain. You can read my book reviews on each book on Amazon.


For more information about index fund investing, I would recommend either The Bogleheads Guide to Investing, or The Bogleheads Guide to Retirement Investing.