Observations

 It’s done. Finished. My new book is now available and the title is EASY WAYS TO BEAT THE MARKET WITH ETFs.

The book is the outcome of my desire to tell my grandchildren what I learned in four decades of dealing with the financial markets and managing $4 billion of interest rates and currency derivatives. I knew I had to keep it simple otherwise they would not read it.

The title speaks for itself. However, I tried to put the subject in a business cycle context and show how conservative investments offer the best results over the long term. 

I need to thank Jim for participating in the group sessions I started on ETFs. He shared with us his research and a technique I was not using – but I do now. He later was gracious enough to suggest how I should go about printing the book.

Chuck was very instrumental in convincing me to look into ways of investing that could easily be duplicated. His vast knowledge and experience made me focus on several ways I could look at the issue.  His experience, Jim’s presentations and book made me look into the use of programs such as freestockcharts.com, portfoliovisualizer.com, and etfreplay.com to test model portfolios.

Every other week I met with Chuck and Lou – I still do – to keep focused on new trends, read new articles discussing new techniques and above all delve into the importance of not letting emotions take over the decision making process.

The book discusses many portfolios, their performance and risk and the rules to achieve the results presented in various tables. These are the rules any investor has to follow to achieve similar results without letting emotions obscure the process - a very difficult endeavor indeed.

What has been very rewarding for me is that I have learned several concepts while I was testing the performance of various portfolios. These lessons are spelled out at the end of the book. It is not a lengthy book. I am not a verbose writer. I like to make the point quickly and move on to the next subject.

George Dagnino, PhD

Editor, The Peter Dag Portfolio

Since 1977 

Author, Profiting in Bull and Bear Markets