Paul B. Farrell, based in Arroyo Grande, California, has been a financial columnist for MarketWatch.com since 1997. He has published more than 1,400 columns and nine books including The Lazy Person’s Guide to Investing (Warner Business Books, 2004). Farrell says that after 10 years of column writing, he has learned two things from the 40,000 or so e - mails he has received from readers: save regularly and invest lazily (www.MarketWatch.com, Paul Farrell, May 21, 2007). He is the leading exponent of the “lazy portfolio” approach to investing. The specific portfolios featured here are not his but he is largely responsible for their wide exposure.

Scott Burns

Scott Burns (www.scottburns.com) is a seasoned, widely read, and widely quoted financial writer. He was the financial editor for the Boston Herald and then the Dallas Morning News, the latter for 21 years till he retired in late 2006. Based now in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he continues to write a twice - weekly nationally syndicated column on investing and personal finance, something he’s been doing for over 30 years. He’s also the chief investment strategist for Asset Builder, Inc. and co-author of The Coming Generational Storm (MIT Press, 2004).

Bill Schultheis

Bill Schultheis, 47, a broker for 13 years with Smith Barney, is currently a money manager for Pacific Asset Management in Seattle,
Washington. He created the Coffeehouse Portfolio in a 1998 book, which he revised in 2005 (The Coffeehouse Investor, Palouse Press).
Schultheis’ buy-and-hold index fund portfolio is 40 percent bonds and 60 percent stocks.

William J. Bernstein

Portland, Oregon – based Dr. William Bernstein, 58, is probably best known as the author of the widely quoted The Four Pillars of Investing (2002). He also wrote The Intelligent Asset Allocator in 2000 and The Birth of Plenty in 2004 — all three books are published by McGraw - Hill. He and Susan Sharin offer financial advice to high net worth individuals (www.efficientfrontier.com).

Ted Aronson

Ted Aronson, 54, heads the Philadelphia value - oriented firm Aronson
Johnson Oritz (www.AJOParners.com) which manages some $27 billion in tax - exempt institutional funds. He also actively manages two mutual funds, Quaker Small - Cap Value Fund I (QSVIX) and HighMark Large - Cap Value Fund (HMIEX). Both he and his partners have most of their personal retirement money (not taxable) in the two funds. But all of his and his mother’s taxable money is in Vanguard no - load index funds. Specifically, Aronson’s personal family portfolio is invested in 11 Vanguard index mutual funds.

David Swenson

David Swensen, 53, is the longtime manager of Yale University’s $18 billion endowment fund, which trails only Stanford in total assets. Originally from Wisconsin, he has been the chief investment officer for Yale since 1985 when he was hired at the age of 31. Prior to that he received his PhD in economics at Yale and worked for six years on Wall Street at Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers. He currently teaches classes at Yale on investing and institutional money management. But his main job is to allocate assets and pick the right asset managers for Yale’s big endowment portfolio.

Ben Stein

Los Angeles–based Ben Stein, 62, may be as close as we can get to a twenty-first century renaissance man. His father, economist Herbert
Stein, was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors for Presidents Nixon and Ford. But Ben’s talents go far beyond economics. He is a lawyer, teacher, economist, TV personality, movie actor, comic, speechwriter, scriptwriter, and financial columnist. He shares his insightful investment commentary regularly via articles written for Yahoo! Finance online and the Sunday New York Times Business Section. He is also the author of some 25 books, mostly on personal finance. Titles include How Successful People Win (Hay House, 2006) and Yes You Can Still Retire Comfortably (New Beginnings Press, 2005). For details on all his books and recent columns go to www.benstein.com.

Jim Cloonan

It is the genius, passion, and entrepreneurial spirit of Chicago native James Cloonan, 76, PhD, that has fueled the growth of AAII (American Association of Individual Investors). After doing some teaching, financial consulting, and heading a brokerage firm, Cloonan founded AAII in 1978. He believed that individual investors could outperform the popular averages if they had access to effective, unbiased investment education and the dedication to use it.

Burton Malkiel

Who is the most famous person to teach at Princeton University? Main
Street would likely answer Albert Einstein, but Wall Street would probably vote for the widely influential Burton Malkiel, currently a professor of economics at Princeton. Malkiel is a passionate proponent of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH). It’s a theory that contends that stock prices reflect all publicly available information rapidly and, for the most part, accurately. Before joining the Princeton faculty, Burton Malkiel, 75, had a varied career in finance. After receiving his MBA from Harvard and his doctorate from Princeton, he worked in the investment banking department of Smith Barney. He later served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors and dean of the Yale School of Management (Harvard, Yale, Princeton — not bad).

John Bogle

In my opinion, the two people who have done the most for the individual
investor in this country are Louis Rukeyser and John Bogle. Rukeyser
educated investors for 32 years via his weekly TV show Wall Street Week. Bogle has championed the rights of the investor for most of his 56-year career. He founded the Vanguard Group, the second largest mutual fund company in the world (next to Fidelity). When he was 22 years old in his senior year at Princeton, Bogle wrote a thesis arguing for low - fee mutual fund investing. Today, at the age of 78, more than half a century later, Bogle is still pounding the table on the issues that matter most to him — low fees, buy-and-hold investing, index funds, corporate abuse, and investors’ rights.

Charles Kirk

Charles Kirk (www.thekirkreport.com) is near the top of my 'people I most admire' list. He excels in four areas: (1) He has an uncanny feel
for the market, which has produced an amazing (I use the word seldom) track record; (2) he is totally committed to perfecting his trading skills, working tirelessly to learn more and do even better; (3) he has a passion to share his insights with his readers in hopes of making them better traders, and has turned down lucrative money management opportunities so he can “follow his bliss” ( Joseph Campbell); (4) he is modest, low-key, and quick to give credit to others, qualities more likely to be found in his hometown of Hugo, Minnesota, than on Wall Street.

Jonathan Clements

London - born, Cambridge - educated, and Metuchen, New Jersey – based Jonathan Clements, 44, is one of the nation’s premier financial journalists. He has written the Wall Street Journal’s popular “Getting Going” personal finance column since October 1994. His books include You’ve Lost It, Now What? How to Beat the Bear Market and Still Retire on Time (Penguin Group, 2003). Prior to joining the Journal in 1990, he covered mutual funds for Forbes.

Paul Merriman

Paul Merriman, 64, has been managing money for clients since 1983 when he founded the investment advisory firm Merriman Capital Management in Seattle, Washington. He is one of the nation’s leading authorities on mutual funds. His thinking is accessible through his web site www.FundAdvice.com, his radio broadcast, workshops, videos, and his book, Live It Up Without Outliving Your Money: Ten Steps to a Perfect Retirement Portfolio (John Wiley & Sons, 2005).

Timothy Middleton

Based in Short Hills, New Jersey, Timothy Middleton writes a widely read weekly column for www.MSNMoney.com focusing mostly on mutual funds. He also does commentary on CNBC’s Squawk Box and WCBS radio in New York City. He was a former mutual fund columnist for the New York Times and authored “Abreast of the Market” for the Wall Street Journal Europe. A financial journalist for over 25 years, he was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in investigative journalism. His profile of Pimco’s Bill Gross, Bond King, was published by John Wiley in 2004.

Frank Armstrong

Frank Armstrong is an independent investment adviser. His financial planning firm, Investor Solutions, is located in Coconut Grove, Florida. His book, The Informed Investor: A Hype-Free Guide to Constructing a Sound Financial Portfolio (American Management Association, 2002) is included on a list of 11 books labeled by BusinessWeek Online as all-time “Must Reads for Investors.” On that list he joins such heavyweights as Benjamin Graham, Burton Malkiel, Jeremy Siegel, Andrew Tobias, and Phillip Fisher. The book’s back cover says, “Armstrong detests Wall Street’s steep commissions and high fees. He offers no-nonsense advice for evaluating mutual funds . . . ”

Jim Lowell

Jim Lowell is a leading expert on the subjects of the Fidelity family of funds and exchange-traded funds. He is a prolific and fluent writer. He is the ETF columnist for Forbes magazine and a monthly columnist for www.Marketwatch.com. He’s been giving independent advice on Fidelity funds since 1998 in his monthly newsletter, Fidelity Investor. He is also the editor of two ETF publications, The Forbes ETF Advisor and The ETF Trader from Marketwatch. He is the author of Smart Money Moves (Penguin, 2000), Investing from Scratch (Penguin, revised December, 2006), and What Every Fidelity Investor Needs to Know (John Wiley & Sons, 2007). Working out of Needham, Massachusetts, Lowell also lectures on philosophy and religion and is an avid sport fisherman.

Andrew Tobias

I am a big fan of Andrew Tobias, 60, often called the dean of U.S. personal finance writers. He is a very smart man, as modest as he is bright, who uses insight, humor, and engaging prose to convey rock-solid guidance on all things money related. T.S. Perić , the editor of Managing Small Business, says, “If financial advice is what you’re looking for, Tobias is the king.” When students ask me what one investment book they should read, my unhesitating answer is Andrew Tobias’ The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need (Harcourt Books, paperback, revised 2005).

Standard & Poor's The Outlook

Probably the surest test of the value of a service or product is its staying power. By that measure, The Outlook must be doing something right. It’s been dispensing advice weekly for 79 years, making it the oldest investment newsletter in the country (Babson-United ceased publication in 2001; Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letters, launched in 1958, is the oldest written by one person). The Outlook is owned by Standard & Poor’s, best known for its widely followed market indexes, its bond and stock rating services, and as a provider of independent investment information.

John Wasik

John Wasik is one of the nation’s leading personal finance journalists. He’s won numerous awards for his columns and investigative reporting. He lectures, guests on radio and TV, and writes books, 10 in all. They include The Kitchen-Table Investor (Owl Books, 2001), The Bear-Proof Investor (Owl Books, 2002), and The Merchant of Power, a profile of Sam Insull (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006). A resident of Lake County, Illinois, Wasik is probably best known for his weekly personal finance column for Bloomberg News which reaches some 400 newspapers on five continents.

Richard Jenkins

Richard Jenkins is editor-in-chief of www.MSNMoney.com, one of the biggest and most popular investment web sites. Prior to joining MSN Money in 1996, he spent 17 years at newspapers in southern California, including a stint as news editor of the business section of the Los Angeles Times. Popular MSN Money columnists who work under Jenkins include Jim Jubak, Jon Markman, Liz Weston, M. P. Dunleavey, and Tim Middleton.

Kiplinger

The Washington D.C.–based Kiplinger organization has been publishing personal finance advice and business forecasts for over 80 years. Its stable of products includes magazines, newsletters, books, web sites, and software. Probably its two best-known publications are The Kiplinger Letter and Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine (formerly Changing Times). The Letter dates back to 1923 and features business, economic, and political forecasts. The magazine, launched in 1947, attempts to provide its readers with the information they need to make smart decisions about their money. Apparently they’ve succeeded since Personal Finance is still going strong after 60 years. Like Forbes, the Kiplinger franchise is a family affair; Knight Kiplinger is the current editor-in-chief.

Morningstar: Don Phillips and Sue Stevens

Morningstar is a household name among investors even though it’s been around for less than 25 years. Joe Mansueto, a former securities analyst, founded the company in his Chicago apartment in 1984. At that time, outfits like Standard & Poor’s and Value Line were providing independent research reports on stocks, but not on mutual funds. Morningstar filled that void with analysis of individual mutual funds. That analysis featured two proprietary tools that have become closely identified with the Morningstar brand—the one to five star rating system and the nine-square style box.

J. D. Steinhilber

J. D. Steinhilber, 36, eats, lives, and breathes ETFs. In 2001, he founded Agile nvesting based on his conviction that index funds combined with disciplined asset allocation produce superior investment results. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, his firm manages client portfolios using a pure ETF approach. As a recognized authority on ETFs and ETF portfolio strategies, his articles are featured in major business publications, investment web sites, and in his own newsletter on ETF investing.

Carl Delfeld

Carl Delfeld, 49, is an expert in the international investment arena and uniquely qualified to put together a global portfolio. His more than 20 years in the investment business have included positions as an international banker, a consultant on Asian investment to the U.S. Treasury, an international economist for the U.S. Senate, and a director of the Asian Development Bank in Manila where he led missions to a dozen Far East countries. Currently, Delfeld is president of Chartwell Partners, a global investment advisory firm based in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

David Jackson

David Jackson is an achiever. Following his graduation from Oxford University and the London School of Economics, he worked in technology venture funding and then five years as a technology analyst for Morgan Stanley. After a stint at managing money, he launched his initial web site, www.TechUncovered.com, which morphed into www.SeekingAlpha.com in early 2004. (“Alpha” represents performance over and above that of the general market.) In just a few years, SeekingAlpha.com has become the largest network of stock market blogs, opinion, and analysis.

Larry Swedroe

Investment adviser Larry Swedroe, 55, is one of the heroes of the world of indexing. He is among the strongest, most persuasive and articulate champions of passive investing and asset allocation. He was among the first to publish a book that explained the merits of indexing in layman’s language. Based in St. Louis, Missouri, Swedroe has been a principal and director of research at Buckingham Asset Management for the past 11 years. Previously he worked as vice chairman for Prudential Home Mortgage and for Citicorp as a regional treasurer. Swedroe has written extensively on the passive asset class investment approach. His insightful commentary has been featured on national TV and quoted in the financial media.

Steven Schoenfeld

Steven Schoenfeld, 44, is a heavyweight in the world of indexing—the professional’s professional. If someone is called to speak to the most sophisticated investment managers on the subject of indexing opportunities in the global marketplace, it’s likely to be Steven Schoenfeld. His long list of credentials explains why, currently, he’s chief investment officer in charge of quantitative global investments for Northern Trust. This involves management of some $220 billion in index and enhanced index strategies. Before that he was founder of Global Index Strategies, a San Francisco–based consulting firm; chief investment officer for Active Index Advisors; and for six years, a managing director at Barclays Global Investors, where he focused on global index-based strategies including iShares ETFs.

Dr. Marvin Appel

There is a perception that doctors make poor investors. If true, Dr. Marvin Appel, 45, is an obvious exception. He is both an MD (with an inactive practice) and a money manager/technical analyst. A Harvard graduate, he received his training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and in anesthesiology at John Hopkins. He also did data analysis work at M.I.T. and has a PhD in biomedical engineering. He has applied his expertise in computer research and mathematical modeling to stock market analysis, asset allocation, and most recently to the field of ETFs. Dr. Appel has his own money management firm, Appel Asset Management in Great Neck, New York. He is editor of the respected and durable investment newsletter Systems and Forecasts, founded by his father, Gerald, in 1973.

XTF

XTF LP (eXchange Traded Funds) is a young but aggressive New York–based firm that deals exclusively with the creation and marketing of ETF portfolios (www.XTF.com). Only in existence since 2000, it has already made an impact because of its innovative moves to design customized portfolios to fit any customer profile from most conservative to most aggressive. XTF has assets under management approaching $300 million and offers 20 all-ETF portfolios, but expects to offer a lot more.

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