7 diversification strategies for your investment portfolio

Diversification is a key part of risk management, with the goal to enhance and preserve your investment portfolio’s value.

For investors, one of the most important considerations is how to manage portfolio risk.

Diversification is the practice of building a portfolio with a variety of investments that have different expected risks and returns.

The benefit of diversification in your investment portfolio

Diversification can help protect you against events that would affect specific investments.

As an example, let’s look at industry-specific risk found in energy stocks. If the price of oil falls, it’s possible that multiple corporations that work in gas and oil may see their share prices fall. If you’ve invested in industries aside from energy, that decline in value would likely have less of an impact on your portfolio.

Diversification does not guarantee returns or protect against losses and can help mitigate some, but not all, risk. For example, systematic risks – which include inflation, interest rates or geopolitical events – can cause instability in markets and affect the broader economy and market overall.

7 strategies to diversify your portfolio

1. Determine correlation

It’s important to consider the correlation between the investments in your portfolio.

Even if you own many different investments, if they all trend up or down together, your portfolio isn’t appropriately diversified. For instance, high-yield bonds often have a positive correlation with stocks. Therefore, a portfolio made up entirely of high-yield bonds and stocks is not well diversified.

2. Diversify across asset classes

Investing offers several asset classes to choose from, including:

• Equities (stocks)
• Fixed income investments (bonds)
• Cash and cash equivalents
• Real assets including property and commodities
   

These asset classes have varying levels of risk and returns, so including investments across asset classes will help you create a diversified portfolio. Diversified investment portfolios generally contain at least two asset classes.

3. Diversity within asset classes 

Following are a few ways to diversify within an asset class.

• Industry: If you invest in energy stocks, for instance, consider adding tech, biotech, utility, retail, and other sectors to your portfolio.
• Fixed income investments (bonds): Look for bonds with different maturities and from different issuers, including the U.S. government and corporations.
• Funds: While some funds track the overall stock market (known as index funds), other funds focus on specific segments of the stock market. If your goal is diversification, check what stocks your funds invest in to make sure you’re not overly exposed to one area or another.

4. Diversify by location

Asset classes aren’t the only way to diversify. It’s a good idea to consider location and global exposure.

For example, if you only own U.S. securities, your entire portfolio is subject to U.S.-specific risk. Foreign stocks and bonds can increase a portfolio’s diversification but are subject to country-specific risks, such as foreign taxation, currency risks, and risks associated with political and economic development.

5. Explore alternative investments

If you’re seeking additional diversification, assets such as real estate investment trusts (REITs) and commodities are potential options.

• A REIT owns and operates properties, such as office buildings, shopping centers or apartment buildings. Owning shares in a REIT gives you the chance to receive a portion of the earnings of those businesses in dividends. Additionally, REITs are not strongly correlated with stocks or bonds. 
• Commodity investments are investments in physical goods, from gold to natural gas to wheat and even cattle. You can buy commodities directly or through a commodity fund.

6. Rebalance your portfolio regularly

Even the most diversified portfolio needs to be rebalanced. Over time, certain investments will gain value, while others lose it. Rebalancing is a negotiation between risk and reward that can help your portfolio stay on track amidst the market highs and lows.

There are certain situations that might trigger rebalancing, including market volatility and major life events. Read more about when to rebalance your portfolio.

7. Consider your risk tolerance

Your tolerance for risk can impact your approach to diversification. Generally, the longer your timeframe, the more you can weather short-term losses for the potential to capture long-term gains. There are a few questions that can help you determine your risk tolerance, and you’ll generally fall into one of three buckets.

• Aggressive investors generally have time horizons of 30 or more years. With this flexibility, they have a higher risk tolerance and may allocate 90 percent of their money to stocks and just 10 percent to bonds.
• Moderate investors, who have approximately 20 years before they need their money, generally allocate a lower percentage to stocks than an aggressive investor. For example, they may have 70 percent of their funds in stock and 30 percent in bonds.
• Conservative investors, those who have little risk tolerance or will need their money in 10 or fewer years, may do a 50/50 balance between stocks and bonds.
   

Diversification is designed to help your investment portfolio generate more consistent returns over time. Review your portfolio to determine if it's appropriately diversified for your financial goals, risk tolerance and time horizon.

Whether you want to invest on your own or with personalized financial guidance, we have investing options to meet your needs.