Economists compared the market meltdown to a nuclear accident – totally unpredictable and hugely devastating. Like many, (MA '92, PhD '96) began to question the roulette-wheel approach – determining the odds – to investing. If nothing is predictable anymore, how do you decide what to invest in? he wondered.

The answers lie in the Schulich School of Business professor's latest book, , released early this year. In it, Milevsky gives advice and tools (calculators at ) for when reaching life’s “money milestones” – going to school, getting married, having children, buying a home, buying insurance, filing your income tax each year, investing and managing your portfolio, planning for retirement, deciding on a pension.

To make good decisions, you need to understand the hidden assets and hidden liabilities on your holistic personal balance sheet, writes Milevsky in his introduction. That means factoring in your human capital, or ability to earn income, which most overlook. Yet human capital is “the most valuable asset class for most people during most of their working years,” he writes.

“One of the things that prompted me to write the book was the way we teach personal finance,” says Milevsky. “We present it as a collection of independent topics – Week 2 might be on retirement, Week 4 on income taxes, Week 5 on pensions – with no unifying theme.” In the book, he challenges readers to think about smoothing their income and their consumption over their entire life cycle.

Left: Moshe Milevsky

The 198-page book is full of simple, statistically sound, even controversial, advice – don’t let debt deter you from investing in an education, wait until you’re 50 to buy a house, realize children cost a lot of money ($180,000) but could be your pension plan, consolidate your debt, avoid trivial insurance such as extended warranties, buy a pension plan if you don’t already have one.

Critics might object to placing a monetary value on having children or getting married or going to university, acknowledges Milevsky. He’s not disregarding or disrespecting the non-financial reasons, but “ignoring the monetary implications of our decisions can lead to financial regret,” he writes.

“My point is,” he says, “you should think about things.”

Milevsky, 43, is the father of four daughters. He waited until he had tenure at 91ŃÇÉ« before buying a house, reluctantly, under pressure from his family. Otherwise, “I practise what I preach.”

He never planned on a career as a professor specializing in financial risk management and personal wealth management over the human life cycle – until he experienced a kind of seismic shift in his family life. Milevsky was a master’s student in mathematics and statistics at 91ŃÇÉ« when his father was diagnosed with colon cancer and died six months later. As the eldest, he suddenly became responsible for the family finances, and soon changed course. Instead of pursuing a PhD in mathematical physics, he pursued one in administration. However, his math and stats training has continued to guide his research – sometimes in collaboration with 91ŃÇÉ« faculty – ever since.

Your Money Milestones is Milevsky’s seventh book for the individual investor. His sixth book, Are You a Stock or A Bond? Create Your Own Pension Plan for a Secure Financial Future, came out in September 2008 (see YFile, July 14, 2008). Milevsky revisits its central message – if you have a secure job with benefits and pension plan, you can take investment risks, otherwise stick to a safer, more conservative portfolio – in Your Money Milestones.

Milevsky has written two books for finance specialists and five for individual investors on insurance, investments and retirement income planning, including the 1999 Canadian bestseller, Money Logic: Financial Strategies for the Smart Investor.

A speaker and consultant on retirement wealth management, he has been interviewed by BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, The New 91ŃÇÉ« Times, Barron's, Fortune and Money magazines and major Canadian media.

At 91ŃÇÉ«, Milevsky is executive director of the , a non-profit corporation affiliated with 91ŃÇɫ’s Schulich School of Business and devoted to research in strategic financial planning for individuals. He also heads the  (Quantative Wealth Management Analytics) Group, a propriety software company.

He is the founding co-editor of the . In 2003, he won a National Magazine Award for a series of articles he wrote for the National Post.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributing writer. Republished courtesy o f YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Prof takes unconventional approach to life's major financial decisions appeared first on Research & Innovation.

Calling Moshe ’s views on personal finances unconventional is an understatement, wrote USA Today March 11 in a of Your Money Milestones, the latest book by the professor of finance in the of Business at 91ŃÇÉ«.

Before you dismiss Milevsky’s views as nutty, think about this: How well did following the conventional wisdom work for you in 2008 and early 2009?

Milevsky confesses that mainstream financial planning rules caused half of his family’s net worth to disappear between November 2007 and mid-March 2009. He bought and held onto an ultra-low-cost, globally diversified portfolio that included stocks of solid companies. “I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars by doing everything exactly right,” he says.

The experience caused Milevsky to rethink everything about money.

In the past, he thought about markets as a kind of roulette wheel. With enough data about historical behaviour and outcomes, the argument went, you could predict the odds of success and make money with reasonable confidence.

Today, he takes the nuclear approach. You can’t predict a nuclear accident using history or statistics, and you can’t predict the next market meltdown. What you should do, Milevsky says, is concede that the future is unpredictable and then manage your most important financial decisions with clear-headed math.

You’ve probably never read a personal like this one, unless it was Moshe Milevsky’s earlier book, Are You a Stock or a Bond? Milevsky challenges a lot of conventional wisdom about money, and even when he concurs with mainstream advice, he tends to do so for reasons that are different than you might expect, wrote MSN Money March 11.

Some background: Milevsky is a finance professor in Toronto’s Schulich School of Business at 91ŃÇÉ« and a bit of a rock star in financial-planning circles for his work on annuities, risk management and retirement planning.

This book is like a brisk walk for your brain. You may not agree with all of his conclusions, but you’ll consider some new concepts, and you certainly won’t be bored by yet another rehash of the same old advice.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Schulich prof’s book refutes mainstream financial rules appeared first on Research & Innovation.