Thursday, March 22, 2012

Book Review: "Are you a Stock or a Bond"

 "Moshe Milevsky's book can be looked at as 2 books. Book 1 is how to save for retirement. He argues that you are the CEO of YOU Inc. and that you need to manage your lifes balance sheet. He argues that if you have a job that is very stable and offers a good defined benefit plan (the old classic - when you retire your employer will pay you a constant payment in retirement) , that plan is like owning a safe bond. You can then invest more heavily in stocks. Conversely, if you make your money in a  volatile industry or in a field that is effected by the stock market then you should save more in bonds - this serves as a hedge or insurance against a bad stock market on your (YOU Inc.'s) balance sheet.
Part 2 of the book, in my opinion, is great. He develops a decision model for retirees to protect their life's savings. He recommends that a person break their retirement into 3 types of funds: Lifetime annuities, some sort of limited time period guaranteed annuity payment, and an investment account. The model he presents takes into account a retires spending needs along with estate planning desires to develop a probability of success strategy that limits downside risk of running out of money while in retrement. Something that, as we are living longer, needs to be an important part of the retirement planning process.