Gyroscopic Investing

The hardcover and eBook versions of the Permanent Portfolio book are now shipping from Amazon and other vendors:

The Permanent Portfolio: Harry Browne's Long-Term Investment Strategy Hardcover

The book features a Foreword by J.D. Roth of Get Rich Slowly and covers a wide range of topics about this portfolio strategy. A sample chapter and table of contents is available on Amazon.

We also lightened things up with some illustrations by Wall Street Journal and Washington Post cartoonist Chad Crowe:



Here is a partial list of topics:

What is the Permanent Portfolio?

We go over the background, ideas and philosophies of Harry Browne and the Permanent Portfolio concept in detail. We explain the basics behind his approach, the revolutionary ideas of economic diversification he advocated, and other important details about the strategy.

Simple, Safe and Stable Diversification

We discuss why a simple, safe and stable portfolio is critical to investor success. We also show how a simple, safe and stable portfolio can easily match a portfolio that is much riskier over time with far less chance of catastrophic loss.

Real Returns

We cover the importance of real after-inflation returns and how the Permanent Portfolio can give them to you.

Stocks

We tell you how to own stocks and how to avoid common pitfalls in the investing world. We’ll also discuss how to work with less than ideal stock funds if that’s all you have access to.

Bonds

We cover what bonds to own (US Treasury bonds), why you only want those kinds of bonds and what kinds of bonds to absolutely avoid. We’ll also discuss how to hold these bonds in your account for maximum safety.

Cash

Just like bonds, we’ll discuss why you only want to own US Treasury T-bills for your cash and how to do it with maximum safety.

Gold

This in-depth chapter on gold will give an investor the details on various ways to obtain gold exposure in their portfolio and what ways to absolutely avoid. We cover everything from modern day gold funds, to gold bullion and new banking options that will allow you to easily have allocated secure gold storage both domestically and overseas with low expenses and high safety.

Geographic Diversification with Overseas Gold Storage

This is an extensively researched and approachable chapter on this subject. We boil down this subject into some very simple ways to achieve true geographic diversification. By true geographic diversification we don’t mean an ETF or electronic gold service that stores gold in Switzerland (although we touch on that briefly). Rather, we mean true secure allocated gold storage in safe recognizable institutions that are fully insured, fully audited, fully transparent and in places where you can actually drink the water.

We present options that are safe to do, easy to setup and will work with investors who only have funds to buy a single gold coin up to unlimited amounts of gold bullion. It was important for us to present options for all investors and we have done exactly that. Also it was important to us to have these options be inexpensive and we have done that, too. In fact, even the most expensive option is still 30% less than what the average mutual fund charges annually in typical expense ratios!

Now our readers will have affordable and safe options available to implement this critical piece of the Permanent Portfolio with minimal hassle and expense. If you ever wanted to implement geographic diversification but didn’t know how, this chapter will tell you in detail without anything complex or risky.

Tax Management

We will cover tax management issues relating to the portfolio and strategies you can use to maximize your after-tax profits.

Implementing the Permanent Portfolio for International Investors

If you live outside the US, you will find ideas in here to implement the portfolio where you live with locally available investment products in places like Canada, Europe, Australia and other regions.

Much More...

Thanks!

My preorder should ship tomorrow then!

Thank you for the book. This will be the first book I have bought in years due to disinterest, being frugal and the library. 

I am not sure I "get" the joke in the cartoon. Is it as simple as the brokerage being robbed now instead of their clients?

nathanh wrote: ...
I am not sure I "get" the joke in the cartoon. Is it as simple as the brokerage being robbed now instead of their clients?

Yep.

First!

Mine just arrived. I'll get out my red pen while I verify the proofreading.

Thanks guys. I'm happy to be able to recommend your book now when explaining the PP. Much better than just telling people to read the forum by some random guys on the interweb. Unfortunately many people still need to start with an authority figure (I think being in hardback counts ).

I suppose this means the new standard forum answer will be "Didn't you read that chapter in the book?"

nathanh wrote: Thank you for the book. This will be the first book I have bought in years due to disinterest, being frugal and the library.  

I am not sure I "get" the joke in the cartoon. Is it as simple as the brokerage being robbed now instead of their clients?

Thanks for the purchase. As for the joke, that is the meaning. But we have many more illustrations that we hope will be funnier. I came up with half and Tex the other half. We should have a poll to see who has the better sense of humor according to the readers.

I just placed my order.  I'm looking forward to reading it. 

Amazon shipped my order on Saturday.  They're saying it should arrive tomorrow or Wednesday.  I'm so looking forward to it.  And thanks for the book.

Are you and MediumTex doing a book signing tour?  How do those of us on the forum get our books signed?

craigr wrote: ...  But we have many more illustrations that we hope will be funnier. I came up with half and Tex the other half. We should have a poll to see who has the better sense of humor according to the readers.

Ooh, I'm going to have a good time guessing which are yours and which are from Tex.

dualstow wrote:

craigr wrote: ...  But we have many more illustrations that we hope will be funnier. I came up with half and Tex the other half. We should have a poll to see who has the better sense of humor according to the readers.

Ooh, I'm going to have a good time guessing which are yours and which are from Tex.

That should be an interesting exercise.

I think that the illustrations turned out really well.

I'm going to guess that the robbery cartoon was the work of Tex. Am I right?

Reub wrote: I'm going to guess that the robbery cartoon was the work of Tex. Am I right?

If we admitted it now it would take the fun out of the game. I'll start a thread.

I think I was wrong though about them being 50/50 though. Looking back the numbers are not 50/50, but we'll still let people guess in this thread:

Funniest Book Cartoon

Someone already has a used copy of the book posted on Amazon for $30.

That's one fast reader.

I just received my copy a few minutes ago.  I can hardly wait.

Craigr and MT, I am eagerly digesting your book and loving it! Harry Browne would be very proud.

I want to thank the both of you for introducing me to the Permanent Portfolio and for helping me immeasurably with it's implementation!

Reub wrote: Craigr and MT, I am eagerly digesting your book and loving it! Harry Browne would be very proud.

I want to thank the both of you for introducing me to the Permanent Portfolio and for helping me immeasurably in it's implementation!

That's great to hear.  I'm glad you're enjoying it.

My book is expected this coming Thursday. I am looking foward to it. I plan on using it as a text book for my investment seminars.

steve wrote: My book is expected this coming Thursday. I am looking foward to it. I plan on using it as a text book for my investment seminars.

Thanks for your order.

All this mainstream exposure is worrying me more and more.

I read the book from cover to cover and really enjoyed it! I have been a follower of the PP for a long time. I wrote what I thought was a really good review on Amazon but then decided not to post it because my real name was going to be used and I did not want to lose my anonymity. I have recommended it, and will continue to recommended it to people I know that want to learn more.

steve wrote: I read the book from cover to cover and really enjoyed it! I have been a follower of the PP for a long time. I wrote what I thought was a really good review on Amazon but then decided not to post it because my real name was going to be used and I did not want to lose my anonymity. I have recommended it, and will continue to recommended it to people I know that want to learn more.

Thanks for the great feedback. 

You can change your screen name in Amazon if you want to in order to preserve your anonymity.

MediumTex wrote:

steve wrote: I read the book from cover to cover and really enjoyed it! I have been a follower of the PP for a long time. I wrote what I thought was a really good review on Amazon but then decided not to post it because my real name was going to be used and I did not want to lose my anonymity. I have recommended it, and will continue to recommended it to people I know that want to learn more.

Thanks for the great feedback. 

You can change your screen name in Amazon if you want to in order to preserve your anonymity.

You can now find my review on Amazon under my new pen name.

steve wrote:

MediumTex wrote:

steve wrote: I read the book from cover to cover and really enjoyed it! I have been a follower of the PP for a long time. I wrote what I thought was a really good review on Amazon but then decided not to post it because my real name was going to be used and I did not want to lose my anonymity. I have recommended it, and will continue to recommended it to people I know that want to learn more.

Thanks for the great feedback. 

You can change your screen name in Amazon if you want to in order to preserve your anonymity.

You can now find my review on Amazon under my new pen name.

Thanks for the review, we appreciate it!

Craig and MT,

I purchased a handful of copies with intention to give some as gifts. What happened within the last few days amazed me: I had impromptu conversations with a neighbor and a friend about something else and in both cases we ended up switching to investing-related topics. In both cases there was a real point of practical interest in getting an advice (one just rolled over a 401(k) into IRA, the other is contemplating buying gold). Long story short: I gave the book to both of them. I really feel like I have to spread the word! I'm in no way a guru and I still feel like a novice when I read some of the forum discussions (well, frankly, it might be good that I'm scared of some of the topics like using 3x-leveraged ETFs and all that other exotic stuff). But you start talking to people about investing and usually after few minutes you realize how much you know and how clueless and scared they are. Most importantly, you realize how little they NEED to know in order to succeed in investing.

Here's my quick feedback:
- the book is written in "plain English" - the fact that authors are not of the finance or academia world is actually beneficial in this case.
- the book is highly practical: a comprehensive list of specific investment options recommendations for each of the PP buckets is worth a lot. A reader can learn from the book all they need to know to go ahead and implement a real-life PP.

The only thing I can think of in terms of an area for improvement is using color- charts definitely would be much more easier to read. Also, Fidelity S&P 500 fund FSMKX has been merged into FUSEX on 01/22/2010 (I recall sending a note to Craig about this), however changes like that are expected and do not harm the credibility of the book.

Good job, folks!

Appreciate the feedback. It's in plain English because we both hate it when people make this topic more complicated than it needs to be!

As for color, the charts were in color to the publisher. But the reality of print publication precludes it being done in reality. It is just too expensive for a publisher to consider it. I wish it was color in the Kindle version, but the formatting is black and white due to production issues as well.