Taylor Larimore - The Bogleheads’ Guide to the Three-Fund Portfolio: How a Simple Portfolio of Three Total Market Index Funds Outperforms Most Investors with Less Risk

Forget picking individual stocks. Stop hunting for star money managers. Dont bother guessing the markets direction. All this is nonsense thatll enrich Wall Street at your expense. Instead, listen to Taylor Larimore, buy three total market index fundsand put yourself on the far surer road to financial success.

Jonathan Clements, founder of HumbleDollar.com and author of From Here to Financial Happiness

The vast majority of investment products and services are overwrought and cost too much, but the Bogleheads are here to say that it doesnt have to be that way. In this single, easy-to-digest volume, lead Boglehead Taylor Larimore shares how three low-cost mutual funds are all you really need for a successful investing life, whether youre just starting out or have been a serious investor for years. The majesty of simplicity have long been Taylors watchwords; this book is the embodiment of those virtues.

Christine Benz, senior columnist, Morningstar, Inc., and author of 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances

Usually if its too good to be true, it is. Taylors investment strategy is an exception to the rule. Most investors will be far better off if they follow Taylors simple, yet sophisticated strategy. It will have a profound impact on their lives.

George U. Gus Sauter, Chief Investment Officer, Vanguard (retired)

Cover images: left to right: FrankRamspott/Getty Images; LEOcrafts/Getty Images;

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Cover design: Wiley

Copyright 2018 by Taylor Larimore. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: Larimore, Taylor, 1924 author.
Title: The Bogleheads guide to the three-fund portfolio : how a simple
portfolio of three total market index funds outperforms most investors
with less risk / by Taylor Larimore.

Description: Hoboken, New Jersey : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., [2018] | Includes
index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018009787 (print) | LCCN 2018011286 (ebook) | ISBN
978-1-119-48737-1 (pdf) | ISBN 978-1-119-48735-7 (epub) | ISBN 978-1-119-48733-3
(cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Investments. | Portfolio management. | Bogle, John C.
Classification: LCC HG4521 (ebook) | LCC HG4521 .L3195 2018 (print) | DDC
332.63/27dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018009787

To Patricia Steckman Larimore, my beloved wife during our 62 years together,

and

Taffy Gould, who now shares my golden years with me,

and

John C. Bogle, who created the three total market index funds

that made The Three-Fund Portfolio possible

The author is donating all royalties to The John C. Bogle Center for Financial Literacy

There is something truly remarkable about the intersection of something old and something new. First, a World War II veteran of the Battle of the Bulge has an idea for building a better world for investors. A decade later, modern technology begins to create unprecedented opportunities for the development of social networks, opening a whole new world for interpersonal communication. That combination of man and technology led to the creation of an investor-driven website for individual investors.

The Army combat veteran, born in 1924, is Taylor Larimore, distinguished citizen of Miami, Florida, and a truly wonderful human being. The new technology is the Internet. The idea: to allow investors in the Vanguard mutual funds to share their ideas, their investment experiences, and their financial strategies with one another, as it is said, without fear or favor.

Founded by Taylor in 1998 as the Vanguard Diehards, the name of the new website was changed to the Bogleheads in 2007. Their first meetingDiehards Itook place in March 2000, when I joined some 20 Vanguard investors in Taylors Miami condominium for dinner, friendship, and lively conversation about investment strategy and policy.

Then to Vanguards home in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, on June 8, 2001, with 40 Bogleheads in attendance. Then to Chicago, where Morningstar hosted the three-day gathering for 50 dedicated investors. Next, to Denver and the Chartered Financial Analysts Conference in 2004, with 90 Bogleheads in attendance.

On to San Diego 2008, and to Fort Worth in 2009, before settling down to roost each year thereafter at a mid-size hotel near Vanguards headquarters in the Philadelphia region. The hotels capacity limits the attendance to some 225 Bogleheads and the openings are quickly filleda full house every year since then.

Ive talked to the Bogleheads at all of these meetings. Each October, for ten years now, Im asked to summarize the major events at Vanguard, in the mutual fund industry, and in the financial markets, and to place them in historical perspective. (The format has barely changed.)

Taylor Larimore is known unofficially as the King of the Bogleheads; his friend Mel Lindauer is known as the Prince. Mel runs these annual gatherings, at which a range of experts speak, including authors (and investment advisors), Bill Bernstein and Rick Ferri. In recent years, Gus Sauter, former Chief Investment Officer at Vanguard, now retired, has become a regular speaker.