Quotes from David F. Swensen

Most asset classes contain investment vehicles exhibiting some degree of agency risk, with corporate bonds representing an extreme case. Structural issues render corporate bonds hopelessly flawed as a portfolio alternative. Shareholder interests, with which company management generally identifies, diverge so dramatically from the goals of bondholders that lenders to companies must expect to end up on the wrong side of nearly every conflict.

For periods of one to two years or less, investors ought to favor bank deposits, money-market funds or short-term bond funds.

The investor with a long-term horizon begins with a portfolio composed entirely of risky assets. Then, as the investor's investment horizon contracts, the investor moves assets from high-risk to low-risk positions.

Sensible investors take great care to minimize the tax bill associated with moving assets from the high-risk, long-term portfolio to the low-risk, short-term portfolio. Although the tax code introduces many complexities to investment decision making, as a starting point consider moving taxable long-term assets to the low-risk portfolio, thereby allowing tax-deferred holdings to continue to receive shelter from taxes.

Passive market timing consists of inadvertent deviations from long-term targets caused by the action of market forces on the values of a portfolio's various asset classes. Whether caused by an investor's active decision or an investor's passive indifference, market-timing returns result from deviations between hypothetical target portfolio returns and actual portfolio asset class returns.

Aside from the unusual circumstances in which agents exhibit principal-like behavior, investors face the challenge of dealing with an adversarial agent who profits at the investor's expense.

Cambridge Associates Annual Analysis of College and University Pool Returns.

On initial investment, investors frequently pay a load, or sales charge, to acquire shares. Loads range up to 8.5 percent, sometimes varying with the size of investment and length of holding period. Funds without sales charges carry the no-load designation.

Three basic investment principles inform asset-allocation decisions in well-constructed portfolios. First, long-term investors build portfolios with a pronounced equity bias. Second, careful investors fashion portfolios with substantial diversification. Third, sensible investors create portfolios with concern for tax considerations. The principles of equity orientation, diversification, and tax sensitivity find support both in common sense and academic theory.

While astute mutual-fund investors avoid loads, all holders of mutual funds pay management fees.

Sensible investors avoid corporate debt, because credit risk and callability undermine the ability of fixed-income holdings to provide portfolio protection in times of financial or economic disruption.

Junk-bond investors cannot win. When fundamentals improve, stock returns dominate bond returns. When rates decline, noncallable bonds provide superior risk-adjusted returns. When fundamentals deteriorate, junk-bond investors fall along with equity investors.

From a superficial perspective, tax-exempt bonds appear to offer investors the opportunity to place fixed-income assets in taxable accounts (where their special tax characteristics lessen or eliminate tax consequences), freeing capacity in tax-deferred accounts for higher-tax-burdened assets. Regrettably, the problems of credit risk and callability lessen the appeal of tax-exempt bonds to investors.

Because equity owners get paid after corporations satisfy all other claimants, equity ownership represents a residual interest. As such, stockholders occupy a riskier position than, say, corporate lenders who enjoy a superior position in a company's capital structure.

The dollar-weighted and equal-weighted Lipper data indicate that in recent years, investors drank one of two poisons: the burden of higher fees or the drag of larger portfolios.

The harsh reality of the negative-sum game dictates that, in aggregate, active managers lose to the market by the amount it costs to play in the form of management fees, trading commissions, and dealer spread. Wall Street's share of the pie defines the amount of performance drag experienced by the would-be market beaters.

Within the realm of active equity management, investors inhabit a perverse world where higher fees correspond to lower returns. In the broader universe that includes active and passive management, index funds exhibit a dramatic cost advantage over their actively managed counterparts. Well-informed investors recognize that fund fees matter.

Asset-backed securities involve a high degree of financial engineering. As a general rule of thumb, the more complexity that exists in a Wall Street creation, the faster and farther investors should run.

Table 1.2 Markets Occasionally Crush Concentrated Portfolios Source: Ibbotson Associates. Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Inflation 2004 Yearbook (Chicago: Ibbotson Associates, 2004).

In the event of hedge fund gains, the manager shares in a substantial portion of profits. In the event of hedge fund losses, the investor bears the burden alone. The asymmetry of the profits-interest structure clearly favors the fund manager.

Market timing fails to make an important contribution to institutional portfolio results, because investors quite sensibly show reasonable constancy in holdings of various asset types.

Larger portfolios impede investment advisor efforts to manage assets actively

Three themes surface repeatedly in the book. The first theme centers on the importance of taking actions within the context of an analytically rigorous framework, implemented with discipline and under-girded with thorough analysis of specific opportunities.

Casual commitments invite casual reversal, exposing portfolio managers to the damaging whipsaw of buying high and selling low. Only with the confidence created by a strong decision-making process can investors sell mania-induced excess and buy despair-driven value.