Smart investors understand the importance of rebalancing their portfolios by bringing their mix of stocks, bonds, cash and other assets back in line on a regular basis – even when markets threaten that orderly mix on a daily basis.
And what better time to rebalance than year-end?
The idea behind rebalancing is simple. If you never do so, over the long term, your better-performing investments will make up an ever-growing piece of your portfolio – and because these investments are likely those with higher risk, such as stocks, you could end up with a more aggressive allocation than you initially wanted.
When the markets are volatile, you may think you need to rebalance more often than usual, but that’s probably not the case. Why? Large moves in the market don’t necessarily lead to large moves in a portfolio.
For example, in a portfolio with 60% allocated to stocks and 40% allocated to bonds, a 5% drop in the stock market would still leave almost 59% of the portfolio in stocks. To push the portfolio five percentage points off its target, stocks would have to decline by 19%.
Instead of chasing daily market movements, consider rebalancing on some kind of schedule.
But don’t do that more than once a month.
And only do it when allocations stray more than, say, five percentage points from their targets.
Your financial advisor can help you decide what’s appropriate given your risk tolerance.