MAKING MONEY IN A DOWN MARKET. This year's compilation of Book Reviews ends with N^o. 38, a brief recommendation of David W. Hunter's Never Out of Season, a readable and logical self-help book for personal finance and investing. No tricks, no promises, much of the work left to the reader as an exercise, but useful. I found a little example of asset allocation to be instructive. (It's in chapter 12, if you wish to read along.) Suppose an investor intends to keep 25% of a portfolio in fixed-income assets, and 75% in stocks. Assume an initial portfolio of $100,000. Disregard interest and dividends. Now suppose your stocks lose value, in his example, they fall to $37,500. (Yes, you just lost half your wealth in that category.) The winning move is to be true to your objectives. Take $9,000 from fixed-incomes and buy stocks. Why? Because they fluctuate up as well as down. So the next time you review your portfolio, the stocks are worth $93,000 to go with the $16,000 in fixed-income assets. Time to sell some stocks. Mr Hunter notes that "conviction is most necessary at the extremes of market movements" (because one is buying stocks as their prices fall, and selling stocks as their prices rise). But that's how you make your money. Well worth reading, even -- maybe especially -- for people who consider themselves savvy investors.