Hello Lisa, thank you for your review of Prof. Markowitz's book, if not for which I would not have known of the book. I have done extensive research (aka backtesting, and more recently live trading) on portfolio construction using the mean variance framework, and using just historical data. I could not agree more with the conclusions you have highlighted, in particular that variance is a superior measure of risk, and that there is no substitute for the normal distribution for asset returns over long time periods (granted there are the occasional outliers but these can be controlled using post construction trading modifiers). I first learned of the Markowitz Mean-Variance framework when I was studying for the CFA program, and quite naively assumed that all professionals were using it in practice. Since then I have also found that the professionals I have spoken to (with only one exception) do not use this framework, mainly because I think they do not understand how to, so they have spent a lot of time and energy on attempting to come up with alternatives. I reviewed some of these alternatives which I have found do not provide consistent results over time. I should mention that my conclusions are limited to only those strategies I was able to review and that are in the public domain, so there might in fact exist superior proprietary models. Thank you again for your review of the book - you have inspired me to read it. Best wishes, Savio