The Only Guide to a Winning Bond Strategy You'll Ever Need: The Way Smart Money Preserves Wealth Today

I am a big fan of Larry Swedroe's books, and his postings on the Diehards dot Org website (Amazon does not allow links or web site addresses in these reviews). I used this book to contrast and compare Larry's asset class recommendations to Rick Ferri, and great author of many books. I was a little surprised that Larry does not like Vanguard's Total Bond fund (VBMFX) because it contains 33% Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS). Larry would recommend other Vanguard short term bond funds which do not include any MBS like the Short Term Bond Index fund (VBISX) and the Intermediate Term Bond Index fund (VBIIX). I already knew Larry was an advocate of including commodities in the form of PCRIX in your portfolio. Rick Ferri contends that commodities should not be included in your portfolio because they lower your portfolio return. Larry also disagrees with two other Ferri recommendations, high yield (junk) bonds like Vanguard's High Yield fund (VWEHX) and emerging market bonds like Payden's PYEMX. Larry contends the rewards of junk bonds are not worth the risk and emerging market bonds behave too much like stocks. Larry's book does a great job of teaching how to use bonds in a passive index approach to investing. The Richest Man in Babylon Bogle on Mutual Funds: New Perspectives for the Intelligent Investor The Millionaire Next Door The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio A Random Walk Down Wall Street: The Time-Tested Strategy for Successful Investing, Ninth Edition The Coffeehouse Investor: How to Build Wealth, Ignore Wall Street, and Get On With Your Life The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing

I bought this book because I was overwhelmed by the number of options in the bond market. Swedroe breaks down the entire fixed income market into categories and then details the advantages and disadvantages of each type of investment. He details "bond speak" so you can decipher the lingo used in the fixed income world, and shows you how to calculate and use yield to maturity, yield to worst, average duration, etc. The closing chapters show you how to use the knowledge of the different options to put together the fixed income part of your portfolio. Note that all of Swedroe's books that I have read so far advise a passive/rebalancing approach to investing. If you think you can beat the market, his books may not be for you. In addition, each of his books preach the gospel of efficient markets, so there is some repetition among them. Finally, this book was written in an era (pre QE) with higher interest rates, and some of his "rules of thumb" (e.g. require at least 20 basis points per year of duration to increase the length of your investment) will today result in very long term bond investments, which may not be ideal in this environment. For those reasons, I gave it 4 stars instead of five. But I highly recommend this book.

This book strikes an unusually nice balance between comprehensive treatment of the subject and a style understandable by the average investor. Swedroe and Hempen's explanation of the pitfalls of the secondary bond market is particularly valuable, and the advice on Treasury Inflation Protected Securities more than paid for my copy. It's a great complement to Swedroe's first book ("The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You'll Ever Need"), which lays out Modern Portfolio Theory, but does not go into different types of bonds or the mechanics of the bond market in any depth. While Swedroe's advocacy of Modern Portfolio Theory comes across, I doubt that any reader would understand this theory from the book on bonds. The book ends with short, informative appendices on callable bonds and TIPS, plus a glossary that's particularly valuable because of the arcane terminology used in the bond market.

I read this book in about 4 hours and this was a well spent time. I really enjoyed quite a different perspective on investment in fixed income. Larry went over major investment options such as corporate bonds, municipal bonds and treasuries and why he preferred one over the other. He backed up his reasoning with data. I ended up adopting his fixed income strategy for my 403b and my IRA.

I guess I should have looked at the dates on the comments, and the publication date of the book. All the example use interest rates that haven't been seen since the 2008 collapse. Although much of the information on the various categories of fixed investment is interesting and reasonably clear, I some (like opacity of price information) is a little dated. I can't help but wonder if the greater availability of price info and good tools (like on Fidelity's web site) makes some of the advice much less relevant... still worth the modest price and the effort to read though.

I was needing to fill in the gaps I had in my investment knowledge. I was especially lacking in the area of bonds. This book was a bit dry, but not nearly as dry as it could have been. And since I wanted the knowledge, it wasn't at all hard to read. Everything is explained clearly, progressively, and well. It covers the basics, and then dives into the specifics of government, municipal, corporate bonds, and more. It also discusses creating an investment strategy for the fixed-income portion of your portfolio. Recommended.

If you are a private investor wanting an insight on bonds this is a great book. I would argue that understanding bonds is the foundation of understanding any investment vehicle, so great place to start. Be aware that the book was written in 2005 so some procedures might be outdated, the principles nevertheless are the same.

Layout is rational. Wholly US focused would be my only reservation. Perhaps the inclusion of more diagrams might be interesting.

excellent.

I'm a newbie investor, but in the last 2 years I've read more tan 50 investing books. Some of them include the best of John Bogle, William Bernstein, Burton G Malkiel, Richard Ferri, Mebane Faber, Jeremy Siegel, Jason Zwieg, Johnathan Clements, Roger Gibson, Elroy Dimson, Benjamin Graham and others. I think this book is a great choice for newbie investors, like me. It explains almost everything you should know to manage your investments. It is a bit old, but all the knowledge contained in this book is still useful. If you want a more updated edition you can try with Swedroe's The Only guide for the right fianancial plan. If I shoul reccomend a financial handbook, I would choose both of Swedroe's books or William Bernstein's Four Pillars of Investing. My only complaint is that it is not translated to spanish. I'm an spanish investor and It's a pity that non english speakers can not reach Larry Swedroe's advises and wisdom contained in this book.