PSA: Rebalance your portfolio

If, like me, you had any sort of reasonably balanced portfolio at the beginning of the year (or the beginning of last year), it’s worth observing that it is almost certainly way, way out of balance.

If so, this is your reminder to rebalance your portfolio.

Doing so is admittedly really hard to do. If you had a 60:40 (stocks to bonds) portfolio at the beginning of last year, you might very well have 70% or 80% invested in stocks now, and that probably feels great. You feel like a genius, letting your profits run. If there’s anything better than having 60% of your portfolio grow at 20% a year it’s having 80% of your portfolio grow at 20% a year.

But you know it’s a terrible idea. It’s bad enough to have 60% of your portfolio lose half its value. Having 80% of your portfolio lose half its value is much, much worse.

Knowing that it’s hard, let me point out a little thing that might make it a little easier right now: Bond rates are up nicely. You can get nearly 5.25% on 30-year bonds, or almost 3% on inflation-adjusted bonds. That’s good enough that you don’t really need to agonize about whether you can expect a capital gain or capital loss on the bond. Just buy it and take the coupon.

Of course, I have no idea what balance is right for your portfolio. Maybe it’s 60:40. If you’re young, maybe it’s 80:20. If you’re retired, maybe it’s 35:65. But if you had a sensible balance a year or two ago, and you haven’t rebalanced, it is now way out of whack.

This is your reminder to fix that.