Allocating Your Investments

Managing the risk in their savings or investments is essential, and diversification is an effective way to do so. Diversification means spreading or minimizing the risk in their investment. There are several different types of risk, and if you want to reduce your risk, you need to consider these types. An excellent way to diversify is by spreading the risk in three different ways.

1. Spread the risk with more securities

Diversifying across multiple assets means spreading your risk across various assets, such as numerous stocks, multiple funds, or other securities. All investments have some form of risk; unforeseen things can happen no matter how confident you feel.

Many companies have been world leaders in their industry that later went bankrupt. If that company’s shares were the only shares you owned, you would have lost a large part of, if not all, of your investment. Then it would have been better if you had spread the risk in several shares.

2. Spread your risk across multiple markets

Another good way to diversify is to spread the risk across several different markets. Even if you have bought several different securities, you have not spread the risk significantly if all securities have exposure to the same country and the same industry.

For example, you do not have a good spread of risk if you bought five different real estate shares; you have still “put a lot of eggs in the same basket.” To get a good spread of risk, you need to buy securities that focus on several different industries in several other countries.

3. Diversify over time

An often-forgotten dimension to diversify on is over time, such as monthly savings. Regular purchases have several advantages because you buy in both ups and downs, which gives a more even development in the portfolio.

In other words, regular purchases at the bottom counteract the negative effect of buying at the top. You, therefore, avoid the headache of trying to time the market because finding the optimal position to buy is tricky. A more even development and purchase price also means you reduce the risk of losing more significant parts of your capital on the day you want to withdraw your money.

4. What should my portfolio look like?

Based on the statistics, it is easy to conclude how to achieve sound diversification. You should own more than 12 different shares if you are talking shares, preferably in several markets. Then it would be best if you continued to increase your holdings over time, preferably every month regularly.

You should own seven different ones if you are talking funds, preferably in several other markets.

Then you should continue to save continuously, and the easiest way to achieve this is through monthly savings.

Follow this checklist to get a good spread of risk

• Do you have more than 12 shares?
• Are they in different markets?
• Are they in different industries?
• Do you save regularly?
• Do you have more than seven funds?

There are many good reasons to invest outside your country’s borders, not least considering the importance of spreading their risks in several different markets and not putting all the eggs in one basket. But when you invest in a foreign market, you also invest in another currency, which can affect the return on your investment.

For example, we can mention the financial crisis in 2008 when the value of several foreign currencies rose, and several foreign currencies went down, which heavily affected investment. So, this article concludes that never put all the eggs in a single basket; constantly invest in a variable market.