Book excerpt: The science behind creating portfolios that adapt to market changes “After ten years of poor stock market returns and yet great bond and gold returns, there is a real thirst for an all-weather portfolio in a high-risk period. Dick Stoken builds that diversified portfolio and also introduces some timing methods to improve returns and lower risks. This is a very timely and useful book.” —Ned Davis, Senior Investment Strategist, Ned Davis Research, Inc. “Dick Stoken’s Survival of the Fittest for Investors is a masterful and unique dissection of what makes the market tick. It represents an indispensable and brand-new approach for the serious investor. A must on every investor’s reading list.” —Leo Melamed, Chairman Emeritus, CME Group “I selected Stoken’s Strategic Investment Timing as the Best Investment Book of the Year in the 1985 Stock Trader’s Almanac; Survival of the Fittest for Investors will be a leading contender for Best Investment Book of the Year in the upcoming 2013 edition.” —Yale Hirsch, founder, Stock Trader’s Almanac About the Book: Just as the animal kingdom is composed of many species, today’s financial systems are composed of a multitude of independent participants, all over the globe, all influencing the whole. Survival of the Fittest for Investors breaks down the science behind the behavior of these market participants to present a definitive system for building profitable portfolios based on the concept of natural selection. This advanced guide to the cutting-edge science of complex adaptive systems in financial markets tells you where to find and how to track the evolutionary instability underlying these markets. It shows how, with heightened insight and a powerful algorithm, you can survive and thrive in volatile markets by following the simple principles of evolution. Award-winning and critically acclaimed author Dick Stoken punches holes in the outdated, Newtonian cause-and-effect paradigm and helps you see financial markets from a Darwinian perspective, where they function as complex systems that have the ability to adapt. By using his state-of-the-art algorithm, Stoken demonstrates how you can use agent-based modeling to assess the actual way markets behave in order to maximize the upside of your asset allocation. Stoken shows that variation is the key to profitability by using three real-world portfolios, each balancing four major asset classes going back thirty-nine years. Each portfolio clearly demonstrates how to reap consistently impressive profits with lower-than-market risk—regardless of your investment style. Whether you take conservative, traditional, or leveraged positions, this book helps you create portfolios of equities, debt, gold, and real estate that have proven to beat the S&P 500 by up to 22.5 percent! After opening your eyes to the science of complex adaptive systems and the vitality of punctuated equilibrium, Survival of the Fittest for Investors helps you implement the know-how into nuts-and-bolts results by equipping you with such practical tools as: A 1-year/6-month algorithm for accurately simulating evolutionary fluctuations in markets A cutting-edge allocation strategy that takes advantage of our natural “herding” instinct Tips for recognizing and enduring “bubbles” Without Survival of the Fittest for Investors, the evolution of investing may leave your wealth behind.