Active Index Investing: Maximizing Portfolio Performance and Minimizing Risk Through Global Index Strategies

Rating:
Summary: Why indexing is the starting point for your asset allocation
Review: An important disclaimer: I am a specialist index portfolio manager a major index fund manager

This is an excellent book that contains all the important reasons why your asset allocation should start with indexing and then think about active managers (not the other way around - pick the market haystack, not the active manager needle). The important points have not changed over the years, including during the bear market of 2000-2001. The bottom line is that costs matter.

I was most impressed with chapter 19, which well describes the index portfolio management process and demonstrates how much more difficult it is to deliver benchmark returns than what people think. Every person who glibly retorts 'a trained monkey could manage an index fund' and 'what do you guys do all day anyway?' should read this. Index portfolio management is a unique challenge and we're always on a hiding to nothing to achieve this outcome.

The chapters are well researched and there are plenty of references for the interested reader.

It is a large book, but all the chapters are self contained and there is no loss of continuity by reading chapters individually.

I ended up giving it four stars however as the low quality paper on which it was printed makes the book feel a little cheap. For a $90 book the publishers could do better.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding textbook
Review: Steve Schoenfeld's edited volume, "Active Index Investing," is a welcome addition to the literature on financial management. Although rigorous in content, its clear-to-follow chapters and illustrative sidebars combine to make this book extraordinarily useful as a primary textbook on MBA or executive education courses on financial analysis, financial instruments, fixed income asset pricing, and portfolio management. In addition, several chapters, including those dealing with enhanced indexing and benchmarks, will be of particular interest to scholars who are interested in the theoretical literature on portfolio management. Overall, "Active Index Investing" is a winner and gets my highest recommendation due to its clarity and breadth.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for those interested in index funds/ETFs
Review: This book is quite simply contains the best information on the subject of indexing.

It tracks the beginnings of index products and pays respects to the pioneers that developed this type of investing. Mr. Shoenfeld thoroughly decribes the myriad of vehicles that are available for investors today (this list grows every day it seems).

But what really makes this book shine is the real-life examples and guest writers. Books about investment theory often lack concrete illustrations of the theories they espouse. Mr. Shoenfeld descibes in detail how and why individual investors, pension plans, and hedge funds use index products. In many cases, fund managers write the chapters. Getting this information "from the horse's mouth" allows insight into thought processes of those responsible for investing millions of dollars.

The scope of the book is amazing, and even more is available on the e-ppendix on the Web. Congratulations to the author on putting together a massive reference book on the subject of indexing.

Rating:
Summary: Virtuoso Performance!
Review: This is an extremely well written and thoroughly informative guide to the important new world index investing. It's not a short book -- but it's perfectly organized into easily manageable chapters... and more of a page-turner than you'd expect.

The book works on multiple levels. Whatever your degree of investing sophistication, you'll find incredibly useful information. It's probably the only thing you need to read on index investing -- covering mutual funds, ETFs, and making sense of the now-huge variety of index-based investment options. And it's linked to a web site that will keep the book effectively current.

Buying the book was a modest investment that I'm sure will pay off nicely...