New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

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Howard Donnelly
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New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Howard Donnelly »

"Simon & Schuster will publish the first book in nearly two decades by Tony Robbins, the #1 bestselling author, and America's #1 Life & Business Strategist. Over the course of 37 years Robbins has become the ultimate name in self-help. In Money: Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom, to be published November 18, 2014, Robbins focuses on a topic of primary concern to everyone: How to secure financial freedom for ourselves and our families."

"Money: Master the Game will be a huge help to investors...Tony Robbins dropped by my office for a 40-minute appointment that lasted for four hours. It was the most provocative, probing interview of my long career, a reaction shared, I'm sure, by the other souls with strong investment values and sharp financial minds who populate this fine book. This book will enlighten you and reinforce your understanding of how to master the money game and, in the long run, earn you financial freedom."
-- John C. Bogle, Founder, the Vanguard Group and the Vanguard Index Funds

http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/prnew ... 24/NY20702
DFAMAN
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by DFAMAN »

Ok, I honestly would not have expected to see Jack Bogle cited in a blurb promoting a Tony Robbins book, but given my respect for Mr. Bogle, I will hope for the best and look forward to the book.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by pjstack »

I thought Tony Robbins was/is in prison.
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Howard Donnelly
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Howard Donnelly »

DFAMAN wrote:Ok, I honestly would not have expected to see Jack Bogle cited in a blurb promoting a Tony Robbins book, but given my respect for Mr. Bogle, I will hope for the best and look forward to the book.
I was surprised too. I didn't think Jack Bogle and Tony Robbins would be "on the same page."
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parsi1
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by parsi1 »

I may check it out from the library. No reason to waste money buying his books.
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parsi1
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by parsi1 »

pjstack wrote:I thought Tony Robbins was/is in prison.
Why do you say that? People can't write books while in prison :|
Dandy
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Dandy »

This Tony Robbins? from a google of his name
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opini ... .html?_r=0

The New York Times‎ - Aug 2012

... Calif., 21 people were treated for burns after walking barefoot over hot coals as part of an event called Unleash the Power Within, starring the motivational speaker Tony Robbins.
‎Explore: negative thinking

There must be an investment analogy in there somewhere. Personally I'm waiting for Mick J's book on how to invest like a rock star.
wxz76
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by wxz76 »

pjstack wrote:I thought Tony Robbins was/is in prison.
You're probably thinking about Kevin Trudeau.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by oldzey »

Along these lines, this is a good watch if you have an hour to spare: Tony Robbins - Financial Freedom
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Tabulator
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Tabulator »

parsi1 wrote:People can't write books while in prison :|
Is that actually true? I didn't know that.
TravelforFun
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by TravelforFun »

wxz76 wrote: You're probably thinking about Kevin Trudeau.
Whatever happened to Kevin Trudeau? I was facinated with the expose ABC did on him a while back.
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climber2020
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by climber2020 »

TravelforFun wrote:
wxz76 wrote: You're probably thinking about Kevin Trudeau.
Whatever happened to Kevin Trudeau? I was facinated with the expose ABC did on him a while back.
He's rotting in prison where he belongs.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by joe8d »

There must be an investment analogy in there somewhere. Personally I'm waiting for Mick J's book on how to invest like a rock star.
Actually,He's a graduate from London School of Economics and prisoners can write books.
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Kalo
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Kalo »

Dandy wrote:This Tony Robbins? from a google of his name
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/opini ... .html?_r=0

The New York Times‎ - Aug 2012

... Calif., 21 people were treated for burns after walking barefoot over hot coals as part of an event called Unleash the Power Within, starring the motivational speaker Tony Robbins.
‎Explore: negative thinking

There must be an investment analogy in there somewhere. Personally I'm waiting for Mick J's book on how to invest like a rock star.
I checked Wikipedia and found this (excerpt):

"2012 Firewalking event[edit]
In July 2012, the San Jose Mercury News published a report multiple people being burned and hospitalized during one of Robbins' firewalking events on July 19, 2012. This story was picked up by other media outlets including Fox News. These reports were later retracted as inaccurate. On August 8, 2012, Fox News' program Fox & Friends issued an on-air retraction and correction to the inaccurate report.[27]A similar corrective article was published by The Huffington Post.[28][29]"

I guess one problem with just doing a google search is that it may lead to stories that are later retracted as inaccurate.

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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Leeraar »

joe8d wrote:
There must be an investment analogy in there somewhere. Personally I'm waiting for Mick J's book on how to invest like a rock star.
Actually,He's a graduate from London School of Economics and prisoners can write books.
Except, profits / royalties from such books may be seized:

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/08/ ... 313698630/

L.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by SpaceCommander »

pjstack wrote:I thought Tony Robbins was/is in prison.
You're probably thinking of another famous self-help guru: James Arthur Ray. He was sentenced to prison after people died in his sweatlodge fiasco a few years back. That wasn't Tony Robbins.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nat ... 51298530/1
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by nedsaid »

oldzey wrote:Along these lines, this is a good watch if you have an hour to spare: Tony Robbins - Financial Freedom
I watched the video and thought it worth the hour I spent watching it.
A fool and his money are good for business.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by joe8d »

Except, profits / royalties from such books may be seized:
Never said that they would profit from it.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Captain Sensible »

nedsaid wrote:I watched the video and thought it worth the hour I spent watching it.
Agreed. I'm not generally a Robbins fan, but here he's very sensible(!) in describing the "mechanics" of building financial independence:
  • The importance of a cash cushion
    Asset allocation across stocks, bonds, and others
    Security first, then growth
    Know thyself (how much is "enough")
    etc.
He has a simple "3-bucket" plan for saving and investment, where the buckets are designated security, growth, and "dreams". Each of these represents a different mix of risk and reward, and naturally each has a different purpose. The most interesting to me was his security bucket, which includes a cash cushion, IRAs, a paid-for home, and insurance. He also points out that we have powerful levers to control the needed size of this bucket, esp. by choosing a retirement destination with a high or low cost of living.

His main point is that building wealth is 20% mechanics and 80% mindset. His description of wealth as a "state of mind" is a bit hand-wavey around notions like "abundance", but it mostly amounts to a can-do attitude in the face of setbacks, tedium, etc. Toughness might be a better description, or perhaps resilience.

There are some other good insights about the psychology of "enough" and what it means to succeed here:
  • Worriers are going to worry, even with $10M... Learn to manage this.
    Don't wait to hit a magic number to start sharing, mentoring, etc.
    Regardless of finances, the good life takes connections, engagement, and purpose.
IMO he's doing better than Dave Ramsey. He conveys the same sense of urgency and self-efficacy, but with a more sensible grasp of asset classes and risk/reward tradeoffs. It's worth listening to the whole thing for his sense of the mental game.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by BillyG »

Tony Robbins has some good information to share although lot of people are turned off by his style. It is based on research by others and he just repackaged it, doing quite well in the process. About 25 years ago some of his approaches to goal setting and achieving those goals were very helpful to me... but it was before his fire walking stuff which I think was a mistake.

I would have never guessed that I would see him and Jack Bogle mentioned in the same sentence!

Billy
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by stemikger »

I always looked at Tony Robbins as a con man. I just never bought the walking on fire thing and just thought it was mind over matter and he capitilized on it. To be fair, I never read any of his books. I based my decision solely on those informercials that seemd to be on 24/7 many years ago. However, this video was motivating and although basic he seems to get people motivated. From what I saw, he basically described the book the Automatic Millionaire and made it his own. For those who have not read the Automatic Millionaire, it's as basic as personal finance can get and probably all one ever really needs. Unless he is a Boglehead and really wants to know how the nuts and bolts work. I actually enjoyed this video and I admit I'm jaded as one can get, so maybe my lesson for the day was leave my prejudices behind.

I think I will buy the Kindle version of Tony's book.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by CFOKevin »

I lost touch but read a glowing profile in Fortune last week that I highly recommend. Tony currently advises a number of billionaires and they all seem to sing his praises. From the outline in the article, it sounds like his financial advice is going to be very bogleheadish. I'm willing to give it a read and consideration.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Howard Donnelly »

Here is a website dedicated to Tony Robbins' new book, "Money: Master the Game."
http://moneymasterthegame.com/

Jack Bogle, Warren Buffett, and John Templeton are three of the experts he interviewed.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by daniel_ICT »

I thought this was a great interview with Tony Robbins and covers a number of topics from the book:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/10/15/ ... -the-game/

And the fact John Bogle is mentioned raised my interest in the book during the interview. They spend some time talking about index funds and how big of a deal fees are during the interview.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by jjretire »

In the Tim Ferris podcast, Tony seems to be selling the Ray Dalio All-Seasons portfolio as a "secret sauce" for the average investor. He then says that Stronghold Financial is going to implement the strategy. I also read somewhere that Tony Robbins and or his son-in-law may become part owners of Stronghold or Gupta Wealth. Can anyone confirm? Is this disclosed in the book as a potential conflict? Did Ray Dalio know this information when he gave Tony the "secret sauce"?
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by stemikger »

jjretire wrote:In the Tim Ferris podcast, Tony seems to be selling the Ray Dalio All-Seasons portfolio as a "secret sauce" for the average investor. He then says that Stronghold Financial is going to implement the strategy. I also read somewhere that Tony Robbins and or his son-in-law may become part owners of Stronghold or Gupta Wealth. Can anyone confirm? Is this disclosed in the book as a potential conflict? Did Ray Dalio know this information when he gave Tony the "secret sauce"?
Sorry I can't answer your question, but after doing some other searches on Tony, I found he is doing live events and the price is several thousand dollars for different types of VIP packages. This tells me Tony is very good at what he does and no doubt he motivates a lot of people but not sure why he is excluding the average Joe. The average guy could never pay that for his seminars.

Just go on You Tube and Jack Bogle gives his advice away for free and/or the price of a book. Warren Buffett is also all over You Tube and every year gives his special sauce away in the Letter to Shareholders for free on Berkshire's website.

I will probably buy Tony's book because my curiosity got the best of me, but my guess is a Boglehead would not find anything new that they probably can't get on You Tube or Google searches.
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Tony Robbins 2010 Stock Market Warning

Post by dodonnell »

I remember hearing about Tony Robbins 2010 Stock Market Warning back in 2010.

... if you missed it ... you can still watch it on YouTube:
Tony Robbins Economic Warning part 1 of 2 (2010)
Tony Robbins Economic Warning Part 2 of 2 (2010)
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by daffyd »

Based on recent talks and interviews, I think talking to Bogle had a big impact on him. He's definitely preaching the low-cost approach.

The content from prominent people he has interviewed should be interesting. The rest will probably not be super-different from what many folks here follow anyway. But if he can communicate live-below-your-means, invest regularly, stay-the-course, diversified asset allocation and having a margin of safety to a broader audience then I think a lot of good will come from it.

While I think some of the content from discussions with Bogle, Swensen, etc. will be interesting I'm in-part buying the book to try to understand better how to communicate some of these concepts to people who aren't really interested in investing. For instance, In my blogging and posting in less evidence-focused forums, it has been a challenge to get across the value of international diversification (and this is from Australia which comprises 3-4% of world stock markets). There are many people out there who still think their company's stock is less risky than a diversified fund; it will be interesting to see how he can break down these concepts and keep his (less finance-geeky) readers engaged.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by jjretire »

It looks like the Ray Dalio all weather portfolio is a risk parity strategy. There is more information on the Bridgewater website.

Here are the firm brochures for Stronghold Financial and Gupta Wealth. It looks like Tony and his son-in-law Josh Jenkins-Robbins may become owners of the firm mentioned in the book- Money Master The Game. There are a couple other articles if you Google Tony Robbins Portfolio and Stronghold.

Gupta Wealth -- mentions Tony Robbins in Item 10 on page 11- "While the Firm is principally owned by Ajay Gupta, it is anticipated that Tony Robbins will also become a member of the Firm. A conflict of interest exists to the extent that Tony Robbins recommends the services of the Firm or Stronghold Financial and will be entitled to receive distributions or other compensation relative to his future ownership interest in the Firm."

Firm Brochure dated 10/11/2014 for Gupta Wealth -http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/iapd/con ... D9056C8CC0

Stronghold Financial - mentions that Josh Jenkins-Robbins in Item 10 on page 11. --"While the Firm is currently wholly owned by Ajay Gupta, it is anticipated that Josh Jenkins-Robbins will also become an owner of Stronghold Financial. A conflict of interest exists to the extent that Josh Jenkins-Robbins recommends the Firm’s services and receives distributions and other compensation relative to his eventual ownership interest in the Firm."

Firm Brochure dated 10/23/2014 for Stronghold Financial - http://www.adviserinfo.sec.gov/iapd/con ... D9056C8CC0
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Flashes1 »

He's a strong Boglehead.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by prudent »

Recently saw a cover story in either Forbes or Fortune about Robbins and his book. The guy must be impressive - I believe the story mentioned that he's on million-dollar retainers with multiple CEOs for personal consulting.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by stemikger »

He was on a few of the morning shows yesterday and on Kelly and Michael, he was describing how he is going to give the secret to invest without paying high fees. I was thinking to myself. Why do I need Tony repeating what Jack Bogle has been saying for years.

However, after that I did see him on CNBC and he was talking about Ray Dalio's All Season Portfolio. This is something I never heard about, but the way he was describing it sounded too good to be true. It almost sounded like Madoff's portfolio before people knew he was a con man. Tony basically described a portfolio that made money or lost very little in all kinds of markets and he backtested it over the last 75 years.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by SpringMan »

I can not believe that walking on hot coals won't burn your feet.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by BillyG »

SpringMan wrote:I can not believe that walking on hot coals won't burn your feet.
http://www.oprah.com/own-oprahs-next-ch ... Fire-Video
That's a good video.

Investing in individual stocks and active funds will burn you and I suspect that's why a lot of us are here, after getting burned by that fire.

Billy
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by garlandwhizzer »

The Ray Dalio All-Seasons Portfolio leverages up on bonds to offset equity risk. On backtesting even as far back as the 1970s it has reduced risk and volatility but still managed to provide consistent positive returns. The risk of leveraging bonds during the later stages of the bond bear market inflationary cycle in the 1970s and early 1980s was partially offset by the very high bond yields at that time (>10%) which worked like magic when rates began a 32 year decline in 1982. Hence backtesting a leveraged bond portfolio still looks fairly good in this bear market and very good in the bond bull that followed.

That situation is not however applicable to today's extremely low interest rate scenarios. If interest rates and inflation rise from here in a long relentless cycle (which may or may not happen), the leveraged bond "safety" feature that worked so well on backtesting in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s will not work so well going forward from here. In 2013, a modestly bad year for bonds but not a terrible year, this the All-Seasons secret sauce portfolio lost more than 3%. That same year US stocks went up about 30% and a 60/40 balanced portfolio went up about 15%+. Very considerable underperformance as a result of bond leverage, but merely a taste of what might happen if inflation really gets going again. Unlike backtesting the past this time it won't be a pretty picture for investors.

I am a bit skeptical of backtesting in general and defining from it a secret sauce that is expected to work in exactly the same way in the future. Personally, I will not bet one cent on Ray Dalio's All-Seasons Portfolio and will stick to plain old vanilla non-leveraged low cost bond-stock portfolio in line with my risk tolerance.

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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by nedsaid »

Leveraged bonds? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of owning bonds in the first place? I look at bonds as an asset class one puts into a portfolio to produce income and reduce volatility. To me this is just asking for trouble, in a crisis asset classes will often act in ways you don't expect. I remember that Long Term Capital Management got into trouble leveraging bonds back in 1998, Wikipedia said that it got up to 250 to 1. Ray Dalio I am sure doesn't come anywhere near that ratio but the thought of leveraging bonds after a 30 year bull market just gives me the heebie jeebies. What could go wrong?

An all-weather portfolio can be constructed without leverage. The Harry Browne permanent portfolio is a good example of this. 25% stocks, 25% long term bonds, 25% cash, and 25% gold. The point is to have a portion of the portfolio perform well no matter what happens. My guess is that the Tony Robbins book will recommend an all-weather portfolio without leverage, I doubt Ray Dalio would recommend leverage for the small investor.

The problem with back testing is that investment history doesn't repeat, it just rhymes. Each bear market is unique, caused by a different set of circumstances. No matter how astute you are or how well informed you are, there are always things out there you don't know. It is what you don't know that gets you. Back testing is useful as it tells you how your strategy would have worked in the past under actual historical scenarios. It has some value in portfolio design. But all of our predictive powers are rather limited. So basically, you diversify, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Whether we admit to it or not, that is what we all do.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by hoops777 »

There is one thing Tony Robbins is certainly very,very good at.....making money.Like him or not he is also one of the best motivational speakers/life coaches.I bought some of his tapes about 25 years ago.I still remember how he spoke about the need for certainty and uncertainty in our lives,which goes hand in hand with investing.Not a con man but I can understand people not liking him.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Howard Donnelly »

nedsaid wrote:Leveraged bonds? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of owning bonds in the first place? I look at bonds as an asset class one puts into a portfolio to produce income and reduce volatility. To me this is just asking for trouble, in a crisis asset classes will often act in ways you don't expect. I remember that Long Term Capital Management got into trouble leveraging bonds back in 1998, Wikipedia said that it got up to 250 to 1. Ray Dalio I am sure doesn't come anywhere near that ratio but the thought of leveraging bonds after a 30 year bull market just gives me the heebie jeebies. What could go wrong?

An all-weather portfolio can be constructed without leverage. The Harry Browne permanent portfolio is a good example of this. 25% stocks, 25% long term bonds, 25% cash, and 25% gold. The point is to have a portion of the portfolio perform well no matter what happens. My guess is that the Tony Robbins book will recommend an all-weather portfolio without leverage, I doubt Ray Dalio would recommend leverage for the small investor.

The problem with back testing is that investment history doesn't repeat, it just rhymes. Each bear market is unique, caused by a different set of circumstances. No matter how astute you are or how well informed you are, there are always things out there you don't know. It is what you don't know that gets you. Back testing is useful as it tells you how your strategy would have worked in the past under actual historical scenarios. It has some value in portfolio design. But all of our predictive powers are rather limited. So basically, you diversify, cross your fingers, and hope for the best. Whether we admit to it or not, that is what we all do.
Here is an interview with Tony Robbins discussing Ray Dalio's All-Weather Portfolio without leverage:
http://www.businessweek.com/videos/2014 ... en-buffett
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by stemikger »

hoops777 wrote:There is one thing Tony Robbins is certainly very,very good at.....making money.Like him or not he is also one of the best motivational speakers/life coaches.I bought some of his tapes about 25 years ago.I still remember how he spoke about the need for certainty and uncertainty in our lives,which goes hand in hand with investing.Not a con man but I can understand people not liking him.
You are right. I remember he had a ton of infomercials on and showed where he had the participants walking on hot coals. Back in the day I seem to remember they ran during the midnight hour. During those times I used to laugh and put him in the category of late night televangelists and those put tiny ads in newspaper guys (get rich quick schemes). The whole guru thing just seemed silly to me. However, around five years ago, a friend of mine who is a very high powered executive with a very well-known insurance company was sent to one of his events that her company paid a lot of money for. Several of the top executives went with her and till this day she swears by what she learned from him and that seminar. So I guess after all these years, I might have been wrong about him, but I'm not ready to let my red flag down just yet and I do have his book pre-ordered on my Kindle. Tony is indeed a very rich and powerful man, so I don't think he needs my endorsement and it seems he does a lot of good charity work which is always a great thing!
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by nedsaid »

Thanks Howard, I really enjoyed the Tony Robbins interview. He is a bright guy. I bought a set of his tapes years ago and one of his books and enjoyed both. Somehow I didn't get transformed myself but I enjoyed the material. We all need that extra motivation, that kick in the pants, and Tony is good at providing that. I am glad he mentioned that the all-weather portfolio for the small guy is unleveraged, I guess I will have to buy the book to find out what it is. My guess is that it will be some variation of the Harry Browne permanent portfolio, the same basic recipe with somewhat different ingredients.
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by BillyG »

hoops777 wrote:There is one thing Tony Robbins is certainly very,very good at.....making money.Like him or not he is also one of the best motivational speakers/life coaches.I bought some of his tapes about 25 years ago.I still remember how he spoke about the need for certainty and uncertainty in our lives,which goes hand in hand with investing.Not a con man but I can understand people not liking him.
I agree 100%. I bought some of his tapes almost 30 years ago (before his firewalking) and he had some fabulous ideas and very specific advice for goal setting and achievement, and for re-programming your subconscious to achieve those goals, whether they be diet, exercise, education, skill building, business, etc. It is hard to achieve lasting change at the conscious level so you somehow have to change your habits -- which basically is re-programming your subconscious. Subconscious = Habits.

Billy
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by daffyd »

Meb Faber seems to have a review copy and has posted the All Seasons allocation:

Long Gov Bond 40.00%
Intermediate Gov Bond 15.00%
Diversified Commodity 7.50%
Gold 7.50%
US Large Cap 12.50%
US Mid Cap 5.50%
US Small Cap 3.00%
International Stock 6.00%
Emerging Market Stock 3.00%
- See more at: http://mebfaber.com/2014/10/24/the-all- ... ulxd1.dpuf

It is indeed unlevered, more home bias than I'd guess a less back-of-the-envelope risk parity portfolio would have. The amount of interest rate risk in these things always throws me but YMMV. I suspect we'll see some popular adoption followed by outflow of funds if/when real interest rates rise. Interestingly it back tests pretty well even in 1974, 1981 and 1994 which I seem to recall were not good years for long bonds. Commodities certainly weren't as investable for non-institutional investors back then though, so there's certainly a chance folks will be 'skating where the puck was'
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stemikger
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by stemikger »

daffyd wrote:Meb Faber seems to have a review copy and has posted the All Seasons allocation:

Long Gov Bond 40.00%
Intermediate Gov Bond 15.00%
Diversified Commodity 7.50%
Gold 7.50%
US Large Cap 12.50%
US Mid Cap 5.50%
US Small Cap 3.00%
International Stock 6.00%
Emerging Market Stock 3.00%
- See more at: http://mebfaber.com/2014/10/24/the-all- ... ulxd1.dpuf

It is indeed unlevered, more home bias than I'd guess a less back-of-the-envelope risk parity portfolio would have. The amount of interest rate risk in these things always throws me but YMMV. I suspect we'll see some popular adoption followed by outflow of funds if/when real interest rates rise. Interestingly it back tests pretty well even in 1974, 1981 and 1994 which I seem to recall were not good years for long bonds. Commodities certainly weren't as investable for non-institutional investors back then though, so there's certainly a chance folks will be 'skating where the puck was'
Other than the commodities and gold which it does not hold a large percentage of, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference from a 60/40 stock bond index portfolio. It looks like it's slicing and dicing between stocks but why not just hold the total stock market, total international market and total bond market? Or the Total World Index and Total Bond Index.
Choose Simplicity ~ Stay the Course!! ~ Press on Regardless!!!
merenkov
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by merenkov »

It looks like it's slicing and dicing between stocks but why not just hold the total stock market, total international market and total bond market?
I thought the same thing, but I'm guessing the theory is that the equity returns will be goosed by rebalancing the different equity classes over time. I've always been intrigued by Dalio's all-weather portfolio, but never knew what the allocations were until now. I'm not crazy about the gold portion - I wonder how the back-testing would play out if you substituted a REIT fund for the gold. I'd prefer an inflation hedge that actually throws off income over time. Gold just sits there unless and until the global financial system implodes. And in that case, I think I'd have bigger things to worry about.
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Howard Donnelly
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by Howard Donnelly »

From Tony Robbins' new book, "Money: Master the Game," here is Ray Dalio's "All Seasons" Portfolio:

30% in stocks (for instance, the S&P 500 or other indexes)
15% in intermediate term government bonds (7 to 10 year Treasuries)
40% in long term government bonds (20 to 25 year Treasuries)
7.5% in gold
7.5% in commodities

"Wow! There it was in black and white. Ray had masterfully and graciously provided a game-changing recipe that would impact the lives of millions of Americans." - Tony Robbins

Thoughts?
caaaad
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Re: New Tony Robbins Book on Financial Freedom

Post by caaaad »

I bought,read and watched everything he put out. Probably not fair to look down on him. He has an amazing working knowledge of psychology. A super communicator. I like and respect him. He always gets me fired up with his positive approach to everything that shows up in his life.
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Howard Donnelly
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Joined: Tue Dec 14, 2010 2:19 pm

Private Placement Life Insurance

Post by Howard Donnelly »

[Thread moved into here, see below. --admin LadyGeek]

In Tony's Robbins' new book, Money: Master the Game, there is a section entitled, "Rich Man's Roth." - page 443

"The strategy in the pages ahead, known as private placement life insurance (PPLI), has been called 'the secret of the affluent' by the New York Times - and for good reason."

"Here are the astounding benefits available to all:
- unlimited deposit amounts (with no income limitations)
- no tax on the growth of your investments
- no tax when accessed (if structured correctly)
- any money left over for your heirs cannot be taxed."

"Never again will you pay tax on the growth of your investments or the money you access within this structure. This is why the media sometimes calls PPLI the 'Rich Man's Roth.'"

Is anyone familiar with PPLI? Thoughts?
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SkierMom
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Re: Private Placement Life Insurance

Post by SkierMom »

Who is Tony Robbins?
dhodson
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Re: Private Placement Life Insurance

Post by dhodson »

All permanent insurance can "work" that way. Doesn't mean you should do it. These are typically variable universal life insurance polices.
You might want to Google unmet promises life insurance to get an idea how likely things are to work out as illustrated.
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SkierMom
Posts: 239
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Location: Northern CAli

Re: Private Placement Life Insurance

Post by SkierMom »

So....Mr. Donnelly, how did you become the publicist for Mr. Robbins?
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