Product Description

Are the 95 million Americans invested in mutual funds making a mistake? Will inherent problems in the fund industry keep investors from achieving their goals? "Absolutely," says author and financial expert Don Wilkinson. "Mutual funds are the road kill of American investing."

In Stop Wasting Your Wealth in Mutual Funds, Wilkinson throws passé investment strategy out the window to make room for the reality of a new era. According to Wilkinson, there’s a smart alternative to mutual funds-separately managed accounts, or SAMs.

In this brilliant how-to guide, Wilkinson explains that investors can gain and maintain wealth through a SAM, an individual basket of stocks or bonds. This new handbook shows how the average investor can now open a separate account for as little as $25,000-and have the account managed by a top institutional money manager through the investor’s financial advisor.

Stop Wasting Your Wealth in Mutual Funds proves to mainstream readers that they can invest like the super-rich and reap the myriad benefits of a SAM: reduced taxes, elimination of hidden fees, customized holdings, and potentially improved performance.

Packed with top-notch advice from a financial pro, Stop Wasting Your Wealth in Mutual Funds is the bible for investors seeking superior results with greater control. One of the most useful and thought-provoking investment books published this year.

Highlights In Stop Wasting Your Wealth in Mutual Funds, Don Wilkinson provides:

•Point-by-point comparisons of SAMs to mutual funds, outlining risks, benefits, and returns

•A user-friendly process for opening, customizing, and switching to a separate account from mutual funds

•A comprehensive list of financial advisors for fledgling investors

•Ways to find advisors who handle separate accounts for clients

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #279048 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-01
• Released on: 2005-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Review
"A provocative guide for people who don't think they can pick mutual funds wisely or simply want more personal attention." -- -- Russ Wiles, Arizona Republic

"The first 35 pages of Don F. Wilkinson's [book] are worth the book's $20 purchase price. Read them." -- Ken Fisher, Forbes Columnist

Keith Tigue Managing Partner Robinson, Tigue, Sponcil & Assoc. Phoenix, Arizona -- [This book is] a must read for anyone who has worked hard to build and accumulate their wealth.

[This book] gives… answers as to why clients should be in separate accounts over mutual funds and I agree. -- Peter Tedstrom, CFP Owner Brown and Tedstrom, Inc One of Robb Report’s Worth Magazine’s Top 100 Wealth Advisors in the Country

Customer Reviews

Distortions and omissions weaken book's thesis
I bought this book because of a brief reference by a Forbes magazine columnist (who hates mutual funds) raving about the first 35 pages. In those pages Wilkinson complains about high mutual fund fees and quotes Jack Bogle, but never mentions Vanguard's low expenses - or index funds, for that matter.

The remainder of the book, divided between an attack on mutual funds and praise of managed accounts that are recommmended by paid advisors, is so slanted as to be laughable. "Recent studies" tell us that only 20% of mutual fund investors are saving enough for retirement. "The other 80% are at a standstill, achieving little or no savings, totally unprepared for retirement." It's strange that 100% of mutual fund investors are either saving enough for retirement or saving nothing.

Wilkinson creates strange tables to support his arguments. His "Sample Disclosure for a Mutual Fund Showing Tax Expenses" showcases the XYZ fund and compares it to the S&P 500 index. In 2001 the XYZ fund loses 16.8 percent while the S&P 500 loses 22.1%. But in a burst of ingenuity Wilkinson decides that this fair and balanced comparison should show the XYZ fund losing 4.5 percent annually over 10 years while the S&P gains 9.3 percent annually over that period. Curiously, the after-tax return over 10 years on XYZ is listed as positive: 1.3% annually for the return after taxes on distributions, and an even better 2.4% for the return after taxes and sale of all XYZ shares.

Figure 6.1 on the previoua page, "Five Year Average Tax Efficiency for Fund Groups", is undated, and lists "Vanguard" as having a tax efficiency of 70.5% and "Fidelity G&I" (all Fidelity growth and income funds?) as 90.7 percent. Since this list of six "fund groups" includes "AIM Weingarten" (surprised that that's a fund group?) and since the Vanguard group is found to be least tax efficient, this undated table is suspect, to say the least.

In summary, the book is full of mistakes and distortions, so that it loses all credibility. Perhaps investors are better off paying advisors and separate account managers than they are in low-cost, low-turnover mutual funds. But it's impossible to reach that conclusion from Wilkinson, who focuses entirely on high-cost, high-turnover, high-tax-generating mutual funds. He apparently has not heard of tax-managed mutual funds. If you're looking for objective advice on mutual funds versus separately managed accounts, this book is not for you.

Highly biased, beware of biased author
I wish I had reviewed the author's background BEFORE reading this book. He is a salesman (excuse me - wealth advisor) for separately managed accounts SO no wonder he hates mutual funds. They are his competition.

What could have been an objective discussion of the pros and cons of each degenerates into an infomercial for SMAs and bashing of funds.

If you're an investor seeking objective information, look elsewhere. Beware the praise here from other financial salespeople.

Promise fails to live up to potential
As a Certified Financial Planner in NC who is an admitted fan of separately managed accounts, I still consider myself a "student", and crave additional insight into the world of SMA's. I heard about this book being published back in the summer, and eagerly awaited its release.

While this book will serve to educate the public on the advantages of SMA's over mutual funds, and that is always a positive in my mind, I will say I was disappointed in several ways. 1) Omission of detail--the author cites several hidden costs of mutual funds, but does not offer the methodology to substantiate. The biggest example is the invisible trading costs of mutual funds. Wilkinson references John Bogle many times, but fails to provide Bogle's famous formula for estimating the cost (turnover ratio x 0.6% x 2). 2) Omission of MAJOR advantages of SMAs. Perhaps his attorneys advised him to stay away from this topic, but any expert in the field knows that one key advantage of SMA's is the POTENTIAL tax deductibility of the fee above the clients 2% of AGI threshold, effectively lowering the actual managment costs. Another huge omission was in the area of tax loss harvesting. The author does not provide one simple examples of this basic practice and advantate of SMA's--he merely references a graph from a 3rd party that shows SMA's offer greater after tax returns because of tax harvesting---but consistent with his work, he does not provide the basis for the savings. Thus, a potential reader hoping to take the work and utilize it is left feeling empty.

I wanted so much for this book to live up to its potential based on title alone. Unfortunately, it does not.