Imagine investing your hard-earned money into a mutual fund that promises to provide you with good returns. Your portfolio holds a well-crafted, diversified mix of stocks and bonds, aiming to align with your financial objectives and risk tolerance. You feel secure knowing that you have made a wise investment.
While that is a good start, investing alone isn’t enough to reach your goals. Market fluctuations, economic circumstances, and other factors can affect your portfolio’s value and deviate it from its original purpose. This is where rebalancing your portfolio becomes essential to stay on track while adjusting to these changes. But that’s not all. Monitoring and rebalancing your portfolio is important for various other reasons as well including:
- You can keep your investment plans on track
When you invest in mutual funds, you initially set a specific goal, such as long-term growth, income, or capital preservation. However, as the market fluctuates, the asset allocation in your portfolio can become misaligned with your investment goals.
By periodically rebalancing your portfolio, you can help ensure that the mix of assets remains as close as possible to what it was when you first invested. This will help make sure that no one asset class dominates your portfolio and allows you to align more accurately with the needs of your current financial situation.
- Better risk management
Markets change over time which can cause certain asset classes (e.g., stocks) to become riskier than others (e.g., bonds). Monitoring and rebalancing your portfolio help manage risk by ensuring that the percentage of assets allocated to each sector remains consistent while also balancing out any potentially over-weighted categories or sectors.
For example, if you initially decide that 10% of your portfolio should be invested in energy stocks. But the market has changed in a way that now 20% of your portfolio is in energy stocks which may be too risky. Thus, it’s time to rebalance by taking some profits from those energy stocks and reallocating them to different types of mutual funds. This allows you to stay diversified while also managing risk accordingly.
- Access to opportunities for growth
Monitoring your portfolio is a great way to track growth opportunities and any potential risks associated with securities or asset classes.
Through careful analysis, you can spot when it might be time to sell-off certain stocks that have reached their peak and the appropriate time to expand the portfolio with new investments that are likely to see significant gains in the near future. This will help ensure a well-diversified portfolio that is constantly growing and prepared to weather market fluctuations, ensuring long-term success.
- Allow you to create a balanced portfolio
A well-balanced portfolio should not be too heavily weighted in one area or another. It should include a mix of stocks, bonds, cash, and other investment options such as real estate or commodities. Rebalancing ensures that each type of investment remains proportional to the overall portfolio and helps maintain the desired balance based on an investor’s individual risk tolerance level.
Closing thoughts
Any mutual fundsinvestment requires more than just putting money in them. It is equally important to monitor and rebalance to maintain the desired asset allocation while reducing risk and volatility, which ultimately leads to better long-term performance.
Whether you decide to do it every six months or annually, be mindful of any exit loads and tax implications from premature withdrawals. Make sure that you choose funds that have completed their specified holding period and plan your exit wisely if needed.
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