A Brief Note to Our Readers

Most of you who who are perusing these pages are here, directly or indirectly, because of Scott Burns' column in the Dallas Morning News about my article on brokerage fees, Bequeathing Your Assets to Your Broker in the September edition. I am grateful to Scott not only for the boost given Efficient Frontier but also for his kindness and advice.

The jump in traffic resulting from this article was educational. The primary purpose of Efficient Frontier is to explore portfolio theory as it pertains to the average small investor. What I've discovered is that nobody really much cares about portfolio theory, and that to attract a wide audience Efficient Frontier will have to include more pieces which are of "general interest."

So be it. I enjoy writing "general" articles about investing, as you can see from the last two offerings. My hope is that my fluffier pieces will attract more readers to these pages, and that at least some of them will peruse the pieces on portfolio theory.

Please remember, however, that at the end of the day, an understanding of portfolio theory and asset allocation is much more profitable than pieces about brokerage fees, market bubbles, or elegant but inaccurate market sages.

Some readers have commented that they would appreciate some basic pieces on portfolio theory, more substantive than the fluff but not quite as technical as most of the articles. For those of you who want a primer on investing and portfolio theory I cannot recommend Frank Armstrong's Investing for the 21st Century highly enough. The book is apparently going into print soon, so I'd download it before Frank's publisher tells him to pull it.

In fact, this site originated from a book that I wrote, intended as a primer on portfolio theory for the small investor. The book was reviewed by several financial publishers, and rejected by all. One acquisitions editor told me that it seemed that I had not written the book with a narrow enough range of readers in mind -- much of the book seemed aimed at beginners, while some material was aimed at a more expert audience.

One of our readers, Matt Boxberger, from San Diego, very kindly translated the book into html for me, so for those of you who wish a sneak preview at the book, here it is. It's called:

The Intelligent Asset Allocator

Comments? Suggestions? email me, I'd love to hear from you.

William J. Bernstein
wbern@mail.coos.or.us

copyright (c) 1996, William J. Bernstein