Books in the Bloomberg series

From firsthand interviews with families of significant means and gathered wisdom of the experts in the field, the author--a Certified Financial Planner--details the most common "family busters" in story format based on real families and offers expert advice on solutions.

A timely guide to overcoming the retirement challenges we all face The Great Recession has placed a wake–up call to America′s baby boomers. Many have not saved enough for retirement and have not taken a hard look at how many post–work years they may need to finance. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, The Hard Times Guide to Retirement Security tackles the tough questions about retirement in the new post–crash economy. Page by page, it puts retirement in perspective by touching on important issues such as insuring against the risk of outliving your assets, recalibrating damaged retirement portfolios, managing the risk of health–care expenses in retirement, and career strategies for workers who are 50 years old and up. Reveals how to boost lifetime income through better planning, and working just a few additional years Offers advice on how to hire a financial advisor whose first loyalty is to you, not Wall Street Discusses why you should rethink housing in the wake of the real estate crash Offers detailed advice on career reinvention, the 50+ job market and midlife entrepreneurship Engaging and informative, this practical guide provides the strategies needed for a truly fulfilling and secure retirement.

An insightful guide to making strategic investment allocation decisions that embraces both alternative and conventional assets In this much–needed resource, alternative and portfolio management expert John Abbink demonstrates new ways of analyzing and deploying alternative assets and explains the practical application of these techniques. Alternative Assets and Strategic Allocation clearly shows how alternative investments fit into portfolios and the role they play in an investment allocation that includes traditional investments as well. This book also describes innovative methods for valuation as applied to alternatives that previously have been difficult to analyze. Offers institutional investors, analysts, researchers, portfolio managers, and financial academics a down–to–earth method for measuring and analyzing alternative assets Reviews some of the latest alternatives that are increasing in popularity, such as high–frequency trading, direct lending, and long–term investment in real assets Outlines a strategic approach for including alternative investments into portfolios and shows the pivotal role they play in an investment allocation Using the information found in this book, you′ll have a clearer sense of how to approach investment issues related to alternative assets and discover what it takes to make these products work for you.

The final word on passive vs. active investing The debate on active investing-stock picking and market timing-versus passive investing-markets are highly efficient and almost impossible to outperform-has raged for decades. Which side is right? In The Quest for Alpha: The Holy Grail of Investing, author Larry E.

The truth behind the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history In 2005, fifteen workers were killed when BP's Texas City Refinery exploded. In 2006, corroded pipes owned by BP led to an oil spill in Alaska. Now, in 2010, eleven men drilling for BP were killed in the blowout of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.