Book excerpt: The vast majoirty of personal finance books are published in the US and there are really no suitable personal finance books aimed specifically at investors in Asia-Pacific. This timely and practical book will offer advice to readers on how to inculcate an understanding of the value of asset allocation and the importance of monitoring the overall performance of a portfolio rather than fixating on the performance of individual investments. It will be useful to readers who are quite new to investments and those who are relatively sophisticated.