Inspiration and Gratitude

I decided to write my book, Beyond Diversification, while out on a long trail run. A light-bulb moment, of sorts. My thought was that I could write about complex investment topics in an accessible way, with a “Malcolm Gladwell” lens. After years of writing articles for investment journals, I thought it would be fun to remove the constraints imposed by academic referees. I wanted to focus on the interesting, and sometimes fascinating, conclusions from a wide range of research and from my experience. The book conveys insights from more than 200 academic articles with the goal of helping savvy investors become better asset allocators. Clearly, if you’ve read some of my papers, you know that I’m no Malcolm Gladwell. Some of the chapters are technical, and I didn’t manage to eliminate jargon. One book agent told me that the book would “never, ever, be a mass-market book,” unless I re-wrote it from scratch. I did not. My publisher, McGraw-Hill was happy to work with me to target the proper audience. My first thank you must go to Stephen Isaacs and McGraw-Hill for believing in my book from day one, and for agreeing not to dilute the content. Also, thank you to Ingrid Case for her excellent edits.

Recently, I was interviewed by a reporter at Kiplinger. She asked how people with a full-time job find the time to write a book. The short answer is: with a lot of help from my friends. Parts of my book were heavily inspired by articles I co-authored with T. Rowe Price colleagues Rob Panariello, Jim Tzitzouris, Bob Harlow, Stefan Hubrich, Anna Dreyer, Hailey Lynch, Sean McWilliams, David Giroux, Chris Faulkner-MacDonagh, David Clewell, and Charles Shriver. It has been, and continues to be, an absolute pleasure to work with every single one of you. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Rob Panariello for help with empirical questions throughout the book; Stefan Hubrich for his thought leadership on managed volatility and several other quantitative topics; Jim Tzitzouris for everything he’s taught me about life cycle investing; Jerome Clark and Wyatt Lee for building and leading T. Rowe Price’s Target Date franchise; and David Giroux for showing me how great investors think and for his thought leadership on the macroeconomic dashboards and other relative-value analytics for tactical asset allocation. Also, David Clewell has provided continued support of all our “special topics” discussed in our firm’s Asset Allocation Committee, and he did yeoman’s work on the macroeconomic dashboards. Similarly, Hailey Lynch’s empirical analysis on the Revenge of the Stock Pickers was outstanding.

I must also thank Charles Shriver, Rob Sharps, and all the members of the T. Rowe Price Asset Allocation Committee –I’m lucky and humbled to sit at the table with such a distinguished group of investors. Every time we meet, I learn. Working with you makes me less of a dilequant, and more of an investor (check out Chapter 8 in the book if you want to know what “dilequant” means).

Several colleagues gave feedback on an early draft of the manuscript and helped with a few rounds of edits. Many thanks to Gavin Daly, Peter Austin, Swabi Uus, Shannon Lucas, Stephanie Yankaskas, and Dan Middelton for your thoughtful suggestions. And a special thank you to Swabi Uus and John Zevitas for help with legal and compliance requirements, and to David Oestreicher and Terri Doud for mobilizing the legal resources to get this book reviewed internally. Also, thank you to Sylvia Toense, Head of Global Brand Marketing at T. Rowe Price, for her support of this project.

The more nuanced answers on how one gets to write a book on the side of a full-time job, in addition to help from friends and colleagues, involves synergies, mentorship, time management, and support from family. By synergies, I mean that the content of this book is my job. This book shows how we, as an organization, invest money for our clients. Due to our collaborative culture, working at T. Rowe Price provides an incredible opportunity to learn from others and continue to push the boundaries of best practices for professional asset allocation. We have an outstanding culture, and I’m lucky to be part of this organization.

About mentorship, I often say that everything I’ve learned about asset allocation, I’ve learned from Mark Kritzman. Mark mentored me for more than a decade. It was the most rewarding professional collaboration of my entire career. If you would like to learn some of the things he taught me, please take a look at this article I wrote on the 8 Rules for Success.  Mark and I have remained friends, and I continue to learn from him. My career, let alone the book, would never have come to this point without Mark’s support throughout the years. As I mention in Beyond Diversification, I even steal most of his conference presentation jokes.

At T. Rowe Price, I benefit from similarly strong mentorship, guidance, and support from Rob Sharps and Bill Stromberg. I can’t imagine stronger role models for integrity, humility, investment savvy, and leadership. Our industry suffers from a dearth of skilled investors who can lead people. Rob and Bill are the real deal along both dimensions. 

On time management, my book took me more than two years to write, little by little, with many moments of self-doubt. I started writing after I read Cal Newport’s book Deep Work – one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read and one I have quoted previously here on LinkedIn. It helped me organize my time. I’ve never met Cal (and probably won’t because he protects his calendar carefully!), but I feel I need to thank him for changing how I think about time management. Mary Rolfe and Dan Middelton deserve a lot of credit as well for their help managing my schedule. 

Lastly, about support from family, in addition to a passion for finance, I learned the importance of a strong work ethic from my father, Jean-Paul Page. He’s also taught me how to always use judgment in decision-making. I hope you will enjoy reading quotes from him throughout the book. Also, I want to thank my mother, Louisette Hamon. She is a force of nature and has supported me throughout my life. 

I wrote parts of Beyond Diversification during nights, weekends, and vacation days. My wife, Anne Ferguson, has been incredibly supportive, and I’m forever grateful to her. She’s the love of my life. And to our wonderful kids, Charlie and Olivia, thank you so much for your support. I don’t think either of you will have interest in my book. Robotics, video games, and social media channels other than LinkedIn are much more fun than finance, but hopefully you’ll enjoy the fact that I’ve kept the last few words for you: you’re awesome, and I love you! 

This is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Beyond Diversification – What Every Investor Needs to Know About Asset Allocation, 2020, McGraw Hill