Asset Allocation Definition

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1. Asset Allocation
Definition: In simple words, asset allocation means how the investor’s money being distributed into different asset classes.

Explanation: Asset allocation can be referred as an investment strategy that used to balance risk and return by assigning a portfolio's assets. The portfolio’s assets will be apportioned based on the individual's goals, risk tolerance and investment horizon. Asset allocation is said to be an investment strategy due to it is able to minimize risk via diversification. There are three prime asset classes: equities, fixed-income, and cash. They act in different ways over time due to the risk and return levels are not same. Asset allocation helps in securing the returns through diversification and create a less risky portfolio compare to the individual assets. Assets performing well can offset the losses of assets that doing bad.

2. Risk involved in asset allocation (Types of risk)
Risk can be meant by the possibility for an investment's real return will be different than expected. To make it clearer, which means the probability of losing part or entire original investment. Although asset allocation or what we said diversification can minimize risk, the risks are still exist especially when the assets are allocated in improper way.

Failure in determining the risk To avoid the tough problem of risk in equity, investors tend to look at the average return. But to rebalance our portfolio, we need to look into the risk specifically.

Inaccurately apportion the asset When the assets apportioned incorrect may increase the risk and cause greater risk to the investors. For example, if the investor put huge portion of his asset to the high risk asset class and facing losses, the small portion in...

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...s in your mind.

 Phase 3 : Choosing Asset Classes

Now we can determine how to break down asset classes into more specific portion. Besides that, investing in international markets is useful in preventing from investing too densely on a particular country’s market.

The two major ways that most stocks classified are the size of the company and their expected performance. Hence, investors should evaluate the company before investing.

Bonds are expected at growth with low risk. Most investors separate their bond portion equally between nominal bonds and inflation-protected securities. Nominal bonds are government and corporate bonds while inflation-protected securities tends to contribute real return over inflation.

 Phase 4 : Picking Individual Assets

Buy or sell your individual investments to make your portfolio nearly matches your asset allocation plan.

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