Lifecycle Investing

Clearly written and backed by rigorous research, Lifecycle Investing presents a simple but radical idea that will shake up how we think about retirement investing. Diversification provides a well-known way of getting something close to a free lunch: by spreading money across different kinds of investments, investors can earn the same return with lower risk (or a much higher return for the same amount of risk). This strategy, introduced nearly fifty years ago, led to such strategies as index funds. In Lifecycle Investing, Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres—two of the most innovative thinkers in business, law, and economics—have developed tools that will allow nearly any investor to diversify their portfolios over time. By using leveraging when young—a controversial idea that sparked hate mail when the authors first floated it in the pages of Forbes—investors of all stripes, from those just starting to plan to those getting ready to retire, can substantially reduce overall risk while improving their returns. In Lifecycle Investing, readers will learn: How to figure out the level of exposure and leverage that's right for you How the Lifecycle Investing strategy would have performed in the historical market Why it works—even if everyone does it When not to adopt the Lifecycle Investing strategy