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I first met Leland Hevner in 2002 at my former job as a Wall Street Journal reporter for CNBC. I interviewed Leland for a televised investor education segment, and soon found myself calling him frequently for interviews because his advice was always both insightful and immensely practical. Most of all, Leland was a welcome addition to the discussion because he was an advocate for Main Street, not Wall Street. His goal in these interviews was to translate the investing topics being discussed into plain English and to make them relevant to the average person with money to invest. 

When I wrote my first book, Investing Success, published in 2004, I again drew upon Leland’s wisdom to explain common investing mistakes that people make – and how they could fix or avoid those mistakes. As we have maintained contact over the years, I came to appreciate Leland’s dedication to providing individuals with comprehensive, objective and actionable investing education. The study courses he has created for the National Association of Online Investors are a resource that I often recommend to people when I conduct my own investment workshops and investor empowerment activities. 

In The Perfect Portfolio, Leland does more than simply show readers how to navigate the personal investing landscape as it exists today. He goes one step further and boldly advocates making significant changes to this landscape. He challenges the validity and relevance of existing investing concepts such as asset class definition, portfolio design theory and even the very definition of investing risk. And in doing so he presents new ways of thinking and new methods that make the world of personal investing simpler and less intimidating to individuals seeking to take more personal control of their portfolios. 

I applaud the author’s willingness in this book to challenge conventional investing concepts that have been taught by “experts” as indisputable facts for decades. I also applaud his recognition that individuals are truly capable of making their own investing decisions if given the appropriate knowledge, structure and resources. Readers will undoubtedly appreciate his innovative use of an online supplement that makes The Perfect Portfolio more than just a “book” but rather a total learning experience. 

Today’s markets are rife with challenges that confound novice and professional investors alike. Thankfully, The Perfect Portfolio provides the type of “outside the box” thinking that can enable individual investors to not only cope with these challenges but also to view them as profit making opportunities. I firmly believe that anyone with money to invest will benefit from reading this book. The Perfect Portfolio is an easy-to-follow road map to being a successful investor in up and down markets. 

Lynnette Khalfani-Cox,

The Money Coach