Stepping From Behind the Curtain -- Voluntarily

Two friends sent me the same link to a very interesting article in the November 26 New York Times. It is entitled A Dying Banker's Last Instructions, and it describes Gordon Murray, a Wall Street veteran of Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston. Like most others in his circle, he spent his career in a futile attempt to beat the markets. It didn't work, of course: after retiring, he discovered a different, simpler -- and better -- way to invest.

A terminal case of brain cancer led him to co-author a book about how this better investing approach involves simply "investing in a collection of index or similar funds and dutifully rebalancing every so often."

Quoting again from the article: "The mere fact that Mr. Murray felt compelled to write it is itself a remarkable story of an almost willful ignorance of the futility of active money management - and how he finally stumbled upon a better way of investing. Mr. Murray now stands as one the highest-ranking Wall Street veterans to take back much of what he and his colleagues worked for during their careers."

Why am I pointing this out? (Cue up the self-horn-tooting music...) Because this is precisely the investing approach that we have been taking with our clients for over a decade. In fact, Mr. Murray's book sounds like it could be a virtual re-write of my own Low-Stress Investing, published in 2002.

So, see? I'm not just making this stuff up.

Have a great week, and remember to shop locally!