Caution! The Dangers of an Unbalanced Portfolio

If you’re readying for retirement make sure you understand the concept of counterbalancing—you’ll avoid the big losses. And your retirement will be much more enjoyable. Here is are two examples of five-year periods where counterbalancing worked well in the good times and bad. I’ve used the Vanguard Wellesley fund as a counterbalance proxy compared to the S&P 500 for an all stock proxy. As you can see, with a counterbalanced approach you can have your cake and eat it too.