The man who wrote the book on asset allocation, Roger Gibson, founder and CIO of Gibson Capital, LLC, walked listeners through his current view on "Asset Allocation and the Role of Commodities," on U.S. Global Investors' webcast on September 9, with Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of U.S. Global Investors.
Gibson's book, "Asset Allocation: Balancing Financial Risk" (First ed. 1989; 4th ed. 2008, McGraw-Hill), is considered a must-read for financial planners and investment advisors.
U.S. Global Investors manages $2.6 billion in assets, as of June 30, for institutional and retail investors. Its family of mutual funds includes some that focus on natural resources and commodities.
During the economic crisis, Gibson says, his firm spent time with clients, discussing whether changes in their individual strategy were necessary. Gibson's firm developed a two-hour client session based on "behavioral psychology," to help clients understand their "risk tolerance," and a separate, two-hour session on investment "implications and goals." These meetings helped the clients to answer the question: "is your asset allocation correct?" If changes were needed, they could "look at it together" and make those changes. "Most clients in '08 didn't abandon their strategy," he noted, but, if there's another "dip…can they go through that again?"
