Managing Your Own Portfolio

Need a piece of advice on personal portfolio management?

Here is an insightful memo from Arthur Zeikel
to his daughter on Managing Your Own Portfolio.

Arthur is a 20-Year Veteran of Merrill Lynch Asset Management, now retired. He is father of three and grandfather of four and one of the most respected US leaders in asset management. Arthur is also member of the Editorial Board of the Financial Analysts Journal where the memo has been published in the March-April edition in 1994. Now this piece of advice is available on the web site of CFA Institute in their Private Wealth Corner.

Here is an excerpt to let you sense the style of Arthur:

Act.
Make decisions. No amount of informafion can remove all
uncertainty. Have confidence in your moves. Better to be approximately right
than precisely wrong.
Take the long view.
Don't panic under short-term transitory developments. Stick to your plan. Prevent emotion from overtaking reason. Market timing generally doesn't work. Recognize the rhythm of events.
Remember the value of common sense.
No system works all of the time. History is a guide, not atemplate.

Download the letter here.