Not Made Of Money

Now is a good time to look at your retirement plan and reposition or rebalance your plan based on your goals.  Rebalancing is simply moving dollars from one group of assets to another.  For example, say your goal is to have your plan be evenly divided between:

30% Growth (Invests in Stock of an individual company or Growth Mutual Funds)
30% Blend (Mutual Funds that invest in top Companies Stocks & International Companies)
30% Value (Mutual funds that invest in Value Funds and Income/Bond Funds). 
5% Income (Invest in Bond Funds)
5% Cash (Invest in Money Market or Guaranteed Interest Accounts).

After one year of putting money into your account each week when you are paid and with investments going up and down, the percentages are going to change.  So let’s say at the end of the year you now have 37% in Growth, 33% in Blend, 25% in Value, 3% in Income and 2% in Cash.  If your goals are the same for this year all you need to do is rebalance by moving money to each group that is not at your goal. 

Why do this?  Because it helps keep your overall risk down while maximizing your return.  The market is constantly changing and you do not want to be overly weighted in any one investment if a down turn happens.  You do not want all your eggs in one basket.  You need to be properly diversified.  Never have more than 10% invested in your company’s stock or any other company.  Personally, we do not like to have more than 5% in one company.

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