I am Mr Martins Duke, the head of auditing and accounting section of one of the leading banks here in Lome-Togo, West Africa . With due respect and regard, I have decided to contact you on a business transaction that will be very beneficial to both of us.

During our investigation and auditing in this bank, my department came across a very huge sum of money belonging to a deceased person , Mr Robert S. Ellis who died on 26th December 2004 in a car accident here in Lome. From the information that our bank have gotten so far, the accident killed him with his entire family .The person that he used as his next of kin was his 17 year old son who died along side with the family.

Although personally, I keep this information secret within myself to enable the whole plans and idea be Profitable and successful during the time of execution . The said amount was (U.S$10.5M United States Dollars Only).

Meanwhile all the whole arrangement to put claim over this fund as the bonafide next of kin to the deceased, get the required approval and transfer this money to a reign account has been put in place and directives and needed information will be relayed to you as soon as you indicate your interest and willingness to assist me and also benefit your self to this great business opportunity.

Infact, i could have done this deal alone but because of my position in this country as a civil servant(A Banker),we are not allowed to operate a foreign account and would eventually raise an eye brow on my side during the time of transfer because I work in this bank. This is the actual reason why it will require a second foreign party or fellow who will forward claims as the next of kin with affidavit of trust of oath to the Bank and also present a foreign account where he will need the money to be re-transferred into on his request as it may be after due verification and clarification by the correspondent branch of the bank where the whole money will be remitted to your own designation bank account.

I will not fail to inform you that this transaction is 100% risk free. On smooth conclusion of this transaction, we will negotiate on a sharing ratio that will benefit each party. Please, you have been advised to keep it as a “top secret” as I am still in service and intend to retire from service after I conclude this deal with you.

I will be monitoring the whole situation here in this bank until you confirm the money in your account and ask me to come down to your country for subsequent sharing of the fund according to percentages indicated and further investment, either in your country or any country or any country.

All other necessary information will be sent to you when I hear from you.

Please send your response to my private Email: martins_duke60@yahoo.com

Yours faithfully,
Martins Duke

So, if your goals are humble and modest … diversify and allocate (but keep your advisor and fund costs as LOW as possible).

But, if your goals are more extravagent, you need to do what other rich people do: ignore conventional wisdom.

The more appropriate paper to cite regarding portfolio performance is “The Cross Section of Expected Stock Returns”, where Professors Eugene Fama and Ken French (1992) proposed that the month-to-month performance of a portfolio is explained by:

1. The portfolio’s exposure to the market itself i.e. stock vs. bond weighting.
2. The portfolio’s overall exposure to small-cap stocks.
3. The portfolio’s exposure to value stocks (defined by the book to market ratio)

As small-cap companies are riskier than large-cap and value stocks are riskier than growth, Fama and French reasoned that the higher the portfolio’s exposure to each factor (small-cap and value) the higher the portfolio’s expected return.

Until someone can disprove the above, I would recommend that your asset allocation use the following strategy:

1.Decide how much equity risk you can personally stomach, and adjust your stock/bond allocation accordingly.
2. Allocate your stock assets among a wide variety of global regions to achieve diversification.
3. Overweight in value and small-cap stocks as appropriate.

In many markets, all of the above can be achieved using low-cost exchange traded funds (ETFs).