How do you diversify your money? Legit question - I’m all cash rn

So I recently started working and collected around ~100k that is honestly just sitting in my bank account. I’m not invested at all and am ignorant on where I should put my money. I’m 2 years out of school so I don’t want a super conservative portfolio but also wouldn’t put a bunch of money in crypto and call it a strategy.

Anyone have a portfolio mix or diversification strategy they can share?

5 Comments
 

Based on the most helpful WSO content, here are some insights on portfolio diversification strategies:

  1. Dalio's All Weather Portfolio:

    • 40% Long Term Bonds
    • 15% Short Term Bonds
    • 30% Equities
    • 7.5% Gold
    • 7.5% Commodities
    • This portfolio has returned an average of 9.6% over the past 30 years. Most of these holdings are in the form of ETFs.
  2. Personal Investing: 3-Fund Portfolio:

    • Simplicity: Focus on sticking to an asset allocation and re-balancing every year.
    • Behavioral Economics: More choices can overwhelm and lead to suboptimal results.
    • Rebalancing: Even a simple portfolio needs tending. For instance, if equities have taken a hit, consider buying more equities and selling off other asset classes.
  3. Real Estate Diversification:

    • Multifamily Investments: If you are not good at managing certain types of properties, find a talented developer to run the project and co-invest.
    • Diversification Among Stocks, Debt, and Alternatives: This is essential for retirement accounts and emergency funds.
  4. Risk Management and Diversification:

    • Aim for Around 1% Per Month: 12% annualized would make you one of the best portfolio managers around.
    • Core Competencies: Learn discipline, risk management, and diversification. Even if your portfolio ends up flat, solid risk management and diversification are crucial.
  5. Accidental Portfolio Manager's Strategy:

    • Systematic US Equities Strategy: Based on factor research, a security selection model can be effective.
    • Improved Risk Management: Running a similar strategy with enhanced risk management at a prop shop can be beneficial.

These strategies provide a mix of conservative and aggressive approaches, allowing you to diversify your investments effectively.

Sources: How do you handle a negative streak?, Personal Investing: 4 Reasons Why 3 Funds Are All You Need, Dalio's all weather Portfolio - Value Investing version, Accidental portfolio manager looking for options, Qualities of a Great Investor

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

Plain old 60/40 works for a reason. There’s a lot of literature on why 60/40 works so well on a risk adjusted basis. Only flaw is that it tanks during stagflationary periods (low growth high inflation, bad for equities due to low growth and bad for bonds due to fed raising rates in respond to inflation). But 60/40 is a pretty well balanced portfolio that is moderately aggressive during boom markets (high equity growth). During recessions, the fall in equities are offset by bond prices jumping when fed drop rates quickly (convexity offers terrific asymmetry to bond returns when interest rates experience large movements, which occurs especially during a recession). Finally, equity and bonds generally have low correlations with each other, offering terrific diversification benefits (see Markowitz’s paper on Mean Variance Optimization on how the diversification math works out), lowering the portfolio risk in a way that results in a good risk adjusted return long run. Either that or just go 100% invested in the S&P 500.

 

If you truly have 100k liquid you could probably go to a small wealth management shop. Even some of the larger ones will waive the minimum just given your age. If you aren’t already though you should have that in a HYSA or at least start to ladder some bonds. Wealthfront is what I use and it’s pretty easy. I’ll pm you if you’d want to use my referral and it’ll boost the APY to 5.50%

 
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