Generation Alt®: The New Movement in Alternative Investing

Two. The Modern Portfolio Problem

Is that an Eldorado parked in your portfolio?

If only it were just a car.

The 1959 Cadillac Eldorado “isn’t so much a car as a cathedral,” writes automobile guru Quentin Willson.¹⁷ Innovative, cool, rich, and stylish, it came to epitomize America’s post-war swagger. With its space-age style, 390 cubic inch V8 engine and—of course—those fins. “The most telling thing about the ‘59 is its sheer in-yer-face arrogance,” according to Willson. But the car’s attitude, like the country’s, would soon sputter. By the mid-1960s, the country was mired in war, divided culturally, and in the midst of a serious crisis of national ...