Michael LeBoeuf

Working smarter not harder became a kind of mantra in my organisation as they fired yet another batch of "dead wood". The "dead wood" had joined the organisation, maybe 5-10 years before as "the bright young things" or as "new blood". It was hard not to become cynical! Nevertheless, I indulged in this kind of book because it actually offered some good techniques and ideas. I'm reviewing it now, just before I send it off for recycling but that doesn't detract from the fact that I think i gained something from it.
It seems to me that all of the working smarter techniques pretty much rely on making a list of things to do; then prioritising them in some way and then working on them in order of priority. And this book is pretty much the same. However, it doesn't just focus on work life but encourages the reader to apply the techniques to their whole life. Set long term goals and short term goals; set goals for recreational achievements etc. Today, I guess we call this having a bucket list of things you wish to achieve. It's now very dated. Originally came out in 1979 and this version was printed in 1993......so really pre-the personal computer age. And it shows. Nary a mention of computers but lots about delegation. And, to be honest, I think the delegation material is probably still applicable. I had an extremely competent staff member who seemed to be congenitally unable to delegate and insisted on doing it all herself. then she felt herself overworked! A couple of really good suggestions here: learn to say no to requests and have a list of "not-to-do" things....such as all low priority things, or things or things whose completion will have little or no consequence...anything that others should be doing for themselves. OK often there's a fine balancing act with these sort of things. I actually used to encourage my team to help others on the team out when one person was under a lot of pressure. And that was reciprocated when roles were reversed. I think it made for a much more effective team and certainly a happier team who enjoyed working together. We still get together 15 years later because we like each other. And there is one heading there that I really love: "Master the art of Deskmanship" .....sounds a bit sexist these days....and certainly sounds a little strange even in a time of hot-desking when you don't have a place to call your own. Ah....I enjoyed the days of large offices with desks and library shelves and filing cabinets ...with a secretary to take dictation and make one's travel bookings. But days long gone and never to return. Yes LeBoeuf suggests various sorts of spreadsheets but they are not computerised and there are no Gannt charts or pivot tables but the basic ideas are the same. It's really quite a useful little book to help one work smarter. Certainly dated now but it was useful to me at the time (early 90's) so I'm giving it three stars.… (plus d'informations)

This book offers a mix of financial planning advice and investment advice. The financial planning advice is of the Captain Obvious variety - "pay off credit card and high-interest debts", "establish an emergency fund", etc. Not super useful, but not harmful either. The investment advice, in turn, is all over the place. "Buy index funds because passive beats active" - fair enough, lots of research corroborate that. But then you can add "a value and/or a small-cap fund", and Real Estate Investment Trusts can be "a worthwhile addition to larger portfolios". What gives? Either passive beats active, in which case you shouldn't tilt your portfolio towards any specific factors or industries, or it doesn't, in which case you should do stock picking.

Not to mention the magical numbers. "We suggest that REIT funds not exceed 10 percent of your equity allocation." Based on... what? Did the authors use efficient frontier to get to that number? If so, what were the other assets in the portfolio? Where is the data coming from? How long is their time series? "We believe that investors will benefit from an international stock allocation os 20 percent to 40 percent of their equity allocation." Why? The US is 56% of the world's stock market. Why put more than 56% of your equity allocation in US stocks? No explanation is given.

(A minor point, but: if you're presenting the results of some paper then just cite the damn thing. "One of [Financial Research Corporation's] most important studies was..." isn't helpful, it makes us waste time googling around, sometimes to no avail.)

(An even smaller point: "Despite the statistical impossibility, at least 70 percent of Americans believe they are above average." That's not a statistical impossibility if your average is the mean and not the median. Not important in itself, but I don't want to take investment advice from people who don't understand how averages work.)

I did learn new things. I had never thought about how rebalancing forces you to sell high and buy low. This was the first time I saw hard data comparing the returns to different rebalancing strategies. This was also the first time I saw hard data on loss harvesting (and learned that it does work, at least in the US). But that's maybe 5-10 paragraphs out of a 311-page book. (I also learned a lot about how the US government taxes equity and bonds, but most of that is irrelevant to us foreigners.)

Overall you're much better off by reading Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street". Same general point - passive beats active - but a lot more evidence-based and internally consistent.… (plus d'informations)

Buena guía de iniciación al ahorro y la inversión "segura". Tiene el problema de que hay varios capítulos que se centran en pormenores de las leyes e impuestos norteamericanos, pero más de dos terceras partes son aplicables a cualquier país.
El libro propugna el sentido común a la hora de invertir, y da muchos consejos muy interesantes:
- Cuanto antes empieces a ahorrar, mejor.
- Elige fondos indexados. Ganan al 90% de los gestores profesionales de fondos a largo plazo y son mucho más baratos que un fondo de gestión activa. Un fondo indexado te puede costar un 0.2% al año, y uno de gestión activa un 1%-2% al año.
- Elige una combinación de instrumentos (bonos, acciones...) adecuada a tu edad y tus metas y atente a ella.
- Muchas veces cuando el mercado cae es momento de comprar, no de asustarse.
- Reequilibra (rebalance) tu cartera cada trimestre o cada año. Si has ganado mucho en bonos pasa parte del dinero a acciones porque suele suceder que tras un año buenos de los bonos es más probable que venga un año bueno de las acciones. Mantén tu porcentaje en cada producto constante.
- Evita el "investment porn", programas o cursos que te animan a invertir con ellos a cambio de la riqueza y la felicidad. Aunque ganen dinero son mucho más caros que los fondos indexados.
- Si quieres emociones fuertes vete al parque de atracciones. Invertir no es ir al casino. Es desarrollar un plan y seguirlo.

Y así páginas y páginas de detalles, siempre en un estilo comedido (¿aburrido?) y con mucho sentido común. El objetivo final es llegar a la jubilación con un capital suficiente para no tener que preocuparnos nunca más. (Hay un capítulo dedicado a esto: ¿qué porcentaje de mi dinero de jubilación me gasto cada año si me da miedo que se me acabe?)

En general, un buen libro. Recomendable para centrar a inversores/ahorradores nuevos en el mundo de la independencia financiera.… (plus d'informations)