A Wealth of Common Sense: Why Simplicity Trumps Complexity in Any Investment Plan

Asset Allocation

Instead of concentrating on the central issue of creating sensible long-term asset-allocation targets, investors too frequently focus on the unproductive diversions of security selection and market timing.

—David Swensen

Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Pareto made a very simple, yet very effective, discovery called the 80/20 rule that helps drill down to the most important details in many fields of study. Pareto discovered that 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of the people. He also found that 80 percent of the peas in his garden came from 20 percent of the peapods ...