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5 Steps to Simplifying Portfolio Strategy using Asset Allocation

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A lot of individual investors are so interested in getting answers to questions like which stocks to buy, at what price and when to sell – that they do not realize that these are the least important questions to get answered when it comes to building long term wealth.

Perhaps the single most important decision that influences long term returns has got to do with allocation ratio of asset types. That is – how much of my income after expenses – i.e. savings – do I put in various types of assets across stocks, fixed income, real estate, gold and cash? This is broadly referred to as portfolio asset allocation in financial parlance – and is the single most decision that impacts long term returns.

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For simplifying portfolio strategy, all the opinions and advice can be essentially reduced to, in my view, a set of few simple steps:

1. Decide your asset allocation based on your life circumstances: For an individual who does not intend to do investments full time (i.e. has a job or business for his regular income), an allocation of up to 60% in equity, 10% in gold and the remaining 30% in cash and fixed income might be the optimal allocation. It may not give best returns, but is likely to be something that is practically followed over the long term.

2. Select your core and peripheral assets within the allocation: For most individual investors, index funds or select actively managed mutual funds are the best vehicles for equity participation.

3. Review once a year, and Rebalance when allocation ratios go out of whack: i.e. if equities have grown and now account for 70% of assets, shift 10% into others by selling; similarly if cash/fixed income or gold value has increased, shift proportionately into equity.

4. Set up a system for this: both contributions and rebalancing, so that you do not have to take decisions frequently.

5. Keep increasing absolute amounts or relative asset allocation, as your income levels increase or decrease, life circumstances change or ability to take risk alters.

This can be a framework for deducing a simple investment portfolio strategy for most individual investors. Once this is set up, the investor is likely to realize how unimportant the question of which stock to buy and when to sell really is.

How to handle volatility: Creating a mindset

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I have often  found that for an individual investor, the toughest thing to deal with in stock markets is volatility. And by volatility – though it means fluctuations on both sides, what is tough to deal with is basically crashing stock prices. Financial theories have often equated risk to volatility – which may have some sense when you have a need to regularly evaluate the value of your portfolio, but is perhaps otherwise meaningless for an individual investor.

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The all encompassing mindset of an individual investor has to be that of preparation for crashes. While investing in the stock markets, be it through mutual funds or directly, the dominant mindset needs to be that of being prepared for at least a 30% cut at any point in time. That mindset prepares you better to deal with it when it comes.

The advantage of such a mindset is to ensure some degree of rational thinking when the crash happens, even though there may be butterflies in the stomach. Inevitably that happens. In such a scenario, I have found the Ben Graham corollary of thinking of the stock market as an emotional guy called Mr Market whose moods keep fluctuating to be most valuable. This moody guy comes up everyday and offers you a price for your businesses. You are free to buy from him, or sell to him at that price whenever you want; and best of all, you are free to ignore him if you choose to. He will still come back tomorrow. Getting these two things into your mindset – that of expecting crashes, and thinking of stock markets as an emotional guy Mr Market – are the basic starting points in your battle against volatility.

Let’s say you manage to do that – the toughest task of all. After that, deciding what to do when stocks crash becomes easier. And that depends on largely whether you have a plan on why you are in the markets in the first place. If you have, then you are likely to do whatever makes sense according to that plan. If you do not, then this crash could be a good opportunity to do so. In both cases, you are likely to be in a better position to then decide whether to buy from Mr Market, sell to him or simply ignore him.

How to decide which type of investor you should be

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At the heart of any investment strategy is a key decision that the investor needs to make right at the start. This decision could change based on life circumstances and priorities (hopefully not based on swinging moods), but once made, it is important for investors to stick to that. And that decision is what type of investor should you be?

I mention this as a decision that the investor must make, because a lot of current advise seems to try and answer the question – what type of investor are you? rather than what type of investor should you be? The former, I think, is a wrong question to ask – likely to end with the right answers to the wrong question. Very often, in response to this wrong question, investors will end up with the right answers that provide characteristics like aggressive, moderate and risk-averse, derived on a questionnaire around mental make-up, age, income level, etc. Whereas, if one shifts the onus on the decision to be made by the investor – on what type of investor should I be – the next question that comes up will be – how should I decide that? Now that’s a good question to ask.

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The answer to that is provided by legendary value investor Benjamin Graham in his investment classic  “The Intelligent Investor”.  That decision should be taken based on a simple criteria: Am I willing to put in more effort for more returns? If that is the case, I would be an aggressive (or enterprising) investor. If that is not the case, I would be a defensive investor, and should be happy with lower returns.

Very simple – like all other things in life. If you are willing to work for it, you deserve higher returns, else be happy with lower returns.

This may seem like a simple decision to make – but is not easy to stick to. A lot of investors end up trying to be both, and often with bad results. As Graham says, there is nothing like a part-time enterprising investor, because one does not know what one doesn’t know, till experience teaches it. But that is a discussion for another day.

The key is – to take this decision on what type of investor you should be, and sticking to it. Your circumstances may change in which case you may make a conscious decision to change your type. But it should be like a switch – on or off. This decision will have a bearing on the kind of portfolio that should be cultivated. Anything in between may provide excitement, but may not provide investment results.

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