Personal-finance

Roger Gibson's book on Asset Allocation has always been the best basic book on the subject written for use by investment advisors. It is well-balanced between the technical issues and the emotional/psychological issues faced by clients. It is a book that challenges much of the "conventional wisdom" of the industry. Spending a few hours to read this book will be repaid many times over.

I found this books very useful. I've been trying to find an intelligent investing style. Read things like "The Intelligent Investor" by Graham and "A Random Walk Down Wall St." by Malkiel and found them dry and somewhat inaccessible. I much prefered Evans and Malkiel's "Earn More (Sleep Better) : The Index Fund Solution" (cheesy title) and Bernstein's "The Intelligent Asset Allocator". Both small and intelligible books. The only problem is they seemed to state the solution to a problem I didn't know. That's where Gibson's "Asset Allocation" I think fits in. It describes what the problem is when trying to invest well. He makes very good arguments on what you can expect and what you'll have to understand. Things that Berstein and Malkiel go into more depth but Gibson gives you the big picture. I started looking for the solution to a problem and found that the last piece I need was to know what the problem was. Gibson's book reads fast and it is interesting. It's well illustrated and is a great jump off point to all sort of other books.

If you read just one book on investing, this is the book.

Gibson explains the principals of modern portfolio theory in a clear logical fashion.

Excellent.