Article Provided By: Janet Schlarbaum
Author: Mika Hamilton
Asset Management
Someone is going to have to be responsible for the management of your assets in the portfolio. Whether you do it yourself, as many people do, or let an institution do it for you, developing a solid investment portfolio means that it must be watched. Whoever has the responsibility needs to be able to check it on a regular basis and must be reliable. He or she should also be knowledgeable about the markets in order to make the best decisions.
Along with the watching, however, comes the responsibility to handle the assets to your best overall profit. Assets need to be removed occasionally from one stock or mutual fund and placed into a more productive one. The manager will need to know when this is necessary, because moving funds too often can only end up being more costly than it is worth.
Multiple Instruments
Creating the greatest amount of profit also includes the need to diversify. All of your assets should not be held in one stock, or even in one type of stock, such as communications. When all of your eggs are in one basket, it is easy to lose them all at the same time. When you diversify, however, and place some in various types of stock, and some in bonds and mutual funds, what affects one market should not affect them all.
Constant Analysis
In order to ensure the greatest amount of profitability in an investment portfolio, it will need to be carefully watched. Daily changes need not be observed, however, but trends. The market overall fluctuates from day to day, but a long term point of view should indicate general trends of increasing or decreasing profitability. When the losses are either too great, or appear to be heading for trouble, it is time to make the transfer and place those assets into more profitable instruments.
Performance Objectives
A good investment portfolio should have performance objectives in place so that the one managing the assets knows how soon to move the assets. If you want the highest possible performance on your portfolio, then this will necessitate a lot of changing instruments or stocks - especially when the market fluctuates a lot - like it is now.