The Ivy Portfolio: How to Invest Like the Top Endowments and Avoid Bear Markets
ISBN:9780470284896 read summary

I found it more techicial and statistical than I wanted. It has some good information, but had I leafed thru it before purchasing, I am not sure that I would have bought it.

2002. 2008. Did you enjoy investing in those years? The things that happened to your portfolio in those years were not necessary. If you are willing to take matters into your own hands, familiarize yourself with a few exchange-trade funds, and make a few trades a year, the things that happened to you in those years will never happen again.

Skim the first chapters on the Harvard and Yale endowments investments and dig into part II, which tells you how to invest on your own.

The Ivy Portfolio is one of the best investing books I have ever read. It is well researched, understandable, and has an easily implementable investing strategy. It is not based on opinion but on 70 years of investment results. The basic theory of momentum investing was made simple. One of my tenets of a good analyst is to be able to accurately describe a complex system (like investment returns) in simple terms. Faber has done this in the Ivy Portfolio.

I implemented his basic 5 ETF portfolio and have had good results over the past 8 months.
His web site allows you to monitor the current BUY\SELL recomendations for each of the ETFs.

I would have paid 1000s of dollars to an investment advisor to get similar advice, and investment portfolio setup, and more money for the monthly BUY\SELL advise. I paid $30 for the book, and shared it with my business partner, who also implemented the strategy. I highly recommend it. I believe it can be implemented for portfolios as small as $30,000, or as large as millions.

Larry Salmen
Ft. Collins,CO USA

This book offers a straightforward and disciplined strategy for investing in the market. It allows the investor to be aggressive but with some level of downside protection. Most importantly, it offers a way for the investor to separate himself from the emotions of a volatile market. Faber writes about a topic that is confusing to many, but even those with only a basic knowledge of finance and investing will be able to follow his logic and understand his research. I truly believe that this book will change the investment landscape and steer people more towards a disciplined strategy using ETFs versus speculating in individual stocks, buying high-priced mutual funds, and using other more needlessly elaborate products. There are some similarities between the work of John Bogel and Mebane Faber, so anyone who enjoys reading Bogel will like this book, too. Even true buy-and-hold investors should check out the Ivy Portfolio to at least gain a new perspective on a changing investment landscape.

This is a great book with a strategy on the entrance and exit of markets, for those who have no strategy at all. It is written in a language that most all of us, from beginners to seasoned veterans, can easily understand. If you are a buy-and-holder, you probably will not like the book as much, although it might open up a new way of looking at the different philosophies of investment.

In my opinion, the absolute best thing about the book is that it gives a foolproof method of entry and exit timing. In addition, it supplies sample portfolios that attempt to mimic the Yale and Harvard investments that have been so successful. These portfolios can be constructed by the individual investor with suggested ETFs--from the simple five sector model to the complex twenty sector model.

One drawback: There are lots of technical charts and these are small and hard to read; but, fortunately, the author places most of these in the appendices.

(The author has a blog where one can follow his readings and advice. Once a month the author posts a newsletter telling one whether to enter, exit, or remain in the market. One can attain this service without even buying the book.)