How to Smell a Rat

KEN FISHER is best known for his prestigious “Portfolio Strategy” column in Forbes magazine, where his twenty-five-year tenure of high-profile calls makes him the fourth longest-running columnist in Forbes’ 90-plus-year history. Ken is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Fisher Investments, an independent global money management firm. He is on Investment Advisor magazine’s prestigious IA-25 list of the industry’s most influential people; is the award-winning author of numerous scholarly articles; and has published five previous books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Only Three Questions That Count and The Ten Roads to Riches—both of which are published by Wiley. Ken has been published, interviewed, and/or appeared in most major American, British, and German finance or business periodicals. He has a weekly column in Focus Money, Germany’s leading weekly finance magazine. LARA HOFFMANS graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a BA in theatre. She is a content manager at Fisher Investments and contributing editor of MarketMinder.com. She also coauthored with Ken Fisher the bestsellers The Only Three Questions That Count and The Ten Roads to Riches.

With five straightforward rules that would have saved any investor from Bernie Madoff, investment firm CEO and Forbes columnist Fisher (100 Minds That Made the Market) gives readers a secure plan for fraud-proof investing, worthwhile for novices and sophisticated financiers alike. Using the example of everyman “Jim,” a precarious investor navigating shark-filled waters, Fisher presents a clear, fast-paced, tightly organized guide to principles like “Too good to be true usually is,” and “Due diligence is your job, no one else's.” Fully-referenced data, insider details, laser-focused statistical digressions, and the finer points of practical investing keep pages turning. Readers will value the practical, easy-to-follow models of solid, transparent investment strategies and examples from Fisher's experiences as CEO of his own investment firm. Fisher also includes suggestions for further reading and appendices that reproduce previously-published comparisons of different asset allocations, information for small business owners and short biographies of market-movers. Much more than what to avoid, Fisher’s concise guide should be highly illuminating and confidence-building for anyone with a bank account. (Aug.) Starred review (Publishers Weekly, September 2009) Using well-known examples from recent headlines like Bernard Madoff and R. Allen Stanford along with a bevy of historical scam artists, Fisher details the red flags that should alert investors. They are: advisers who have access to your money; promises of returns that are too good to be true; mumbo-jumbo that takes the place of explaining investing strategy; fake benefits like exclusivity, and relying on someone else for due diligence. (Associated Press)

• Acknowledgments viiIntroduction 1Chapter 1: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors 11Chapter 2: Too Good to Be True Usually Is 39Chapter 3: Don’t Be Blinded by Flashy Tactics 63Chapter 4: Exclusivity, Marble, and Other Things That Don’t Matter 87Chapter 5: Due Diligence Is Your Job, No One Else’s 111Chapter 6: A Financial Fraud–Free Future 137Appendix A: Asset Allocation—Risk & Reward 153Appendix B: Same but Different—Accounting Fraud 157Appendix C: Minds That Made the Market 161Notes 195Index 203About the Authors 209