The Book

Guide to Portfolio Management: An investment philosophy

The Essential Guide to Portfolio Management

by Clifford G. Dow, Sr.
CFA, CFP®, ChFC
Chief Investment Officer, Dow Capital Management, LLC

Use Clifford Dow's experience to help you invest successfully.

"There's no shortage of investment information," says 
Clifford G.Dow, Sr.

"It's what we do with the information that counts."

In this book, Dow shares the investment strategies he has honed during his decades as an investment advisor and educator. He focuses on ways to make smart investment decisions and avoid pitfalls that even seasoned investors might fail to recognize.

This practical resource on investing focuses on:

  • The difference between investing and gambling
  • Efficiency and the Control of Risk: the essence of successful portfolio management
  • "Growth" versus "Value" investing
  • "Large Cap" versus "Small Cap" investing
  • A critical look at mutual funds and deferred annuities
  • Challenging the logic of conventional wisdom

 

Of the many esoteric approaches to portfolio management that have emerged in recent years, it is astonishing how unsuccessful most of them have been, Dow observes. To draw an analogy, it is as though each new drug produced by the pharmaceutical industry were shortening, rather than lengthening, man's life expectancy.

Investment success depends, not upon the amount or complexity of what we know, but rather upon how well we know, understand, believe, and apply the basics. In other words, we should be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel even before we enter it. We are closer than we may think to learning all we need to know to become successful investors.

The information and concepts presented in this book should be useful, both to those with a limited familiarity with investing and to those with extensive investment knowledge and experience. For those in the former group, the "sledding" may be more challenging--but it will be well worth the ride.