Global Asset Allocation: Techniques for Optimizing Portfolio Management

by Jess Lederman (Editor), Robert A. Klein (Editor)

Buying this book could be the smartest investment you make thisseason. If that sounds like a bold claim, just take a look at thelist of contributors. In it you'll find the names of twenty-nine ofthe world's foremost experts in asset allocation. Over the courseof twenty chapters, these accomplished institutional investors,academics, analysts, and traders school you in all of the hottestnew portfolio management techniques now in use around theglobe.

Not another abstruse discourse on the theoretical pros and cons ofasset allocation, Global Asset Allocation is a working,nuts-and-bolts guide for institutional investors. It outfits youwith a set of versatile new tools and techniques designed to solvereal-world problems and guide your portfolio managementdecision-making.

While broad theoretical considerations are given their due, thelion's share of this book's coverage is commanded by cutting-edgetechnical issues such as mean variance optimization, allocatingbetween styles of equity management, optimal fixed incomeportfolios, asset/liability forecasting, the critical time horizon,target asset allocation, and chaos theory.

In addition to all of the traditional classes of asset allocations,Global Asset Allocation explores a number of new and emerginginvestment horizons. Foremost among these is "the ultimateinvestment frontier," international markets, to which a sizeableportion of the book (all of Part Two) is devoted. You'll findin-depth discussions of the qualitative and quantitative aspects ofglobal asset allocation, in which various experts describe thelatest global asset allocation models, optimization methods,forecasting techniques, global bond and currency managementstrategies, risk and return analysis in country-to-countryallocation strategies, active and passive management portfoliostrategies, and much more.

Offering world-class strategies for managing global portfolios,Global Asset Allocation is an essential resource for corporatefinance professionals, pension plan sponsors, analysts, andportfolio managers looking to expand their repertoire of financialmanagement skills.

From asset liability forecasting and target asset allocation, tocritical time horizon and implementing overlay strategies, thisgroundbreaking new guide educates institutional investors instate-of-the-art portfolio management strategies guaranteed tominimize risk while maximizing returns. Bringing you the combinedinsights and expertise of twenty-nine prominent investment expertsfrom around the world, Global Asset Allocation is a workinghandbook, designed to guide your portfolio managementdecision-making and help you to solve real-world problems.
* The latest asset allocation models, optimization methods, andforecasting techniques, including passive and active portfoliostrategies
* Includes six major chapters on global asset allocation, includingcurrency management and emerging market investing

Traders, portfolio managers...investment professionals of everyilk: read this book, and use the versatile new strategies, tools,and techniques it describes to give your investment skills arazor-sharp, winning edge.

400 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

After I graduated with a degree in music from Columbia University, a lust for expensive pianos drew me into an unexpected career in finance. It turned out that I had a knack for business; I gained much that the world had to offer and became a hedonist, a gambler who haunted the poker rooms of Las Vegas, and an arrogant atheist. I’ve written fiction for most of my life, and at one point I quit work to devote myself to writing a novel. During that time, my late first wife, Teri, and I lived in Paris, down the street from where Hemingway once lived, and later in the mountains of Idaho. But the novel was never published, for I was a man whose soul had not yet awakened, who did not yet have anything important to say. So I went back to the business world.

One day, when we were living in Dallas, Teri heard a radio interview with Francis Collins, an eminent scientist who wrote The Language of God, which tells the story of his journey from atheism to becoming a disciple of Christ. Collins’ book led us to the writings of C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald*, who became the midwives of our rebirth from above.

There’s no hiding from the Hound of Heaven, once He’s on your trail!

Several years later, Teri was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and we left Dallas and the business world behind and moved to a small town in Alaska. There we looked out on the glory of God’s creation and read to our heart’s content during the last two years of her life. Faced with tragedy, we learned to trust utterly in Him, and He blessed us with the peace that surpasses all understanding.

It was after Teri’s death, while I was still living in the far north, that the idea for Hearts Set Free—which opens in the Alaska Territory in 1925—was born. People who know that the novel contains autobiographical elements (and several historical characters) sometimes ask me, “How much of the story is true?’ And I answer, “Perhaps twenty percent—and the rest is even more true!” What drives my writing is the desire to convey truths that transform lives. Truths of the heart.

In 2013, I met a wonderful woman—my current wife, Ling—and soon we began talking about having children. “Impossible!” said our doctors. “According to your test results, there’s no chance at all, even using the latest techniques.” Of course, within two months of that pronouncement, Ling was pregnant with little David, who just turned three, and we subsequently adopted Daniel, who’s now twelve.

After David’s birth, we moved to southwest Washington. I’m currently at work on a novel set in Las Vegas in 1955, and, when I’m not writing or chasing my sons around, can usually be found at the piano playing Chopin nocturnes for Ling.