What is the single biggest determiner of your long-term portfolio performance?
It’s not luck. It’s not the latest “hot stock.” It’s asset allocation. Spreading your portfolio among stocks, bonds and cash – and rebalancing regularly – will go a long way towards helping you reach your retirement goals.
We asked a few leading personal finance bloggers one key question: “How do you make sure your retirement portfolio stays diversified?”
Here’s what they said:
“I use online tools to track my investments. This allows me to keep all the information I need on every investment at the tip of my fingers and I can see if I need to expand into more bonds, stocks and even if the stocks should be large, mid or small cap. I also use a total market index fund to stay diversified with stocks. That way I don’t have to worry if my allocations between different stock caps are in line.”
Andrea Travillian
“I’ve always been a hands-on kind of investor, so I like to keep track of things manually. I have an excel spreadsheet I use to keep track of the various weights I’ve assigned to each particular fund and if it differs more than a few percentage points from my target weights at the end of the year, I rebalance. If everything is still close to where it needs to be, I won’t do anything.”
Kyle Bumpus
“Work with a financial adviser or tool that will give you common sense explanations of how you should diversify your portfolio. Also, review your portfolio whenever there’s a significant change in your financial situation.”
Will Chen
“My husband and I make sure to sell any shares of company stock that we receive as soon as possible. We’re already dependent on the companies we work for in terms of salary and healthcare, so it’s important that our retirement is not also dependent on the same company and industry.”
Carrie Kirby
“Invest in diversified funds to start with and give yourself a set time to re-allocate every year. Also, make sure you are tracking all of your investments together (IRA’s, 401k’s, other brokerage accounts, etc…). There are some great tools out there to help you track your investments.”
Glen Craig
“The real answer is: I don’t. I invest in stuff I believe in at the time, or what my financial institution advises at the time, and then I let it ride and continue adding to it over time assuming all is well in the world. And so far so good. Then, about every two — three years I’ll call for advice and adjust anything at that point if need be. The smart answer here of course is to adjust more frequently and pay closer attention, but I’m perfectly fine with the 80/20 rule. As long as I’m 80% good with my money, I’m happy. I don’t need it to be perfect.”
J. Money
How do you make sure your investments stay diversified? Leave a comment below!
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