Fully revised and updated second edition. This is your one-stop, definitive resource as you prepare for a secure and comfortable retirement. Investment and personal finance experts Larry Swedroe and Kevin Grogan present uniquely comprehensive coverage of every important aspect you need to think about as you approach retirement, including: Social Security, Medicare, investment planning strategy, portfolio maintenance, preparing your heirs, retirement issues faced by women, the threat of elder financial abuse, going beyond financials to think about your happiness, and much more. These topics are explained with the help of specialists in each subject. And everything is based on the "science of investing" - evidenced with studies from peer-reviewed journals. Overall, this adds up to a complete retirement guide, packed with the latest and best knowledge. Don't enter your retirement without it.

Active managers persistently lag the returns of benchmarks and index funds that track them, with the excuses for underperformance recycled every year. This comprehensive book is the antidote for the active managers' siren song. If you understand the benefits of indexing, or systematic investing, it will reinforce your commitment while increasing your knowledge. If you don't yet believe, Swedroe and Berkin provide a compelling case that you're playing the loser's game of active management. Alpha, or outperformance against appropriate risk-adjusted benchmarks, is shrinking as it gets converted into beta, or factor exposures. They demonstrate that even for the most talented managers, their ability to add value is waning because: the amount of alpha available is declining; it must be split among an increasing amount of investment dollars; and the competition is getting tougher. In this greatly expanded second edition, Swedroe and Berkin show you how to develop an investment plan that focuses on what risks to take, and how much of them, as well as how to build a diversified portfolio. They present a list of vehicles to consider when implementing your plan and provide guidance on the care and maintenance of your portfolio. As a bonus they add appendices that will make you a more informed and, therefore, better investor.