The Smartest Portfolio You'll Ever Own: A Do-It-Yourself Breakthrough Strategy Book

Introduction: A Lesson from Einstein xi

Part 1 The Wrong Way

1 A Battle for Your Brain 3

2 In Bizarro World, These Traits Would Be Valued 7

3 Investing Without Eddie O'Neal 12

4 Join a Wise Crowd 15

5 Trading Against Goldman Sachs 18

6 What You Can Really Learn from Dr. Doom 20

7 The Myth of the Lost Decade 23

8 The Myth of the Excellent Company 26

9 The Myth of Holding Individual Stocks 29

10 The Myth of Holding Individual Bonds 32

11 The Myth of Skill 34

12 A Potpourri of Other Myths 37

13 The Cost of Believing Investing Myths 44

Part 2 The Smartest Way

14 Superior Returns Are Within Your Grasp 49

15 The Right Focus 52

16 Taxes and Costs: Stealth Enemies 57

17 Rebalancing: Sense and Nonsense 60

Part 3 The Smartest Portfolios

18 The Four Smartest Portfolios: An Overview 65

19 Fama and French Are SuperSmart 68

20 The SuperSmart Portfolio: Designed to Produce Higher Returns 76

21 The SuperSmart Portfolio: Chapter and Verse 79

22 SuperSmart Portfolio Returns 84

Part 4 Smartest Alternative Portfolios

23 The Smartest Target Date Portfolio 91

24 The Smartest ETF Portfolio 96

25 The Smartest Index Fund Portfolio 103

26 The Bottom Line 107

Part 5 Going It Alone or Getting Advice

27 Asking the Wrong Question 117

28 Fooling the Fans, but Not the Players 123

29 An Unlikely Source of Returns 127

30 Don't Confuse Knowledge with Success 130

31 The Dimensional Difference 133

32 The Takeaway 136

33 Says Who? 139

Glossary 171

Appendix A Constructing the SuperSmart Portfolio 179

Appendix B Raw Data Used to Produce Risks and Returns 181

Appendix C Fidelity and T. Rowe Price Fund Options for the Smartest Index Fund Portfolio 187

Acknowledgments 195

Publisher's Note 197

Index 199