The Flexible Investing Playbook: Asset Allocation Strategies for Long-Term Success

Chapter 1. Tired . . . but Not Retired

That's what a majority of Americans predict for themselves. This book offers investors and financial advisors an investment philosophy and process to avoid that predicament. For advisors and for the do-it-yourself investor (by definition you are your own financial advisor), it allows insight into approaches and techniques that might just change the way you look at the investment markets . . . for the benefit of you and your family, for this generation and beyond.

While investors save and invest for many financial goals, in my experience the most common one is retirement. While retirement means different things to different people, the common piece of each different person's retirement definition seems to be this: the point in life at which your desired lifestyle can be paid for without your having to work. That does not necessarily mean that you don't work; many have adopted the idea of a "second career" as something they always wanted to do, but were so entrenched in their current industry that they could not afford to give up their high income level. Retirement is as much a state of mind as anything else. It's a feeling that the pressure is off, that you can comfortably afford to support yourself and those you are financially responsible for, now and in the future.

In 2006, I wrote the book Wall Street's Bull and How to Bear It (Isle Press, 2006). There, I reviewed many of the threats to investors and their advisors. I then suggested ways they ...