Content provided by Beaufort Financial:
It’s the time of year again when we’re thinking about New Year’s resolutions, whether it be getting more exercise, spending more time with our children or taking up a new hobby. But the start of the year is also a great opportunity to take a look at your portfolio, to ensure it is doing what it should be but also to ensure it is setup correctly to weather the current environment.
Below are three things you should be considering right now to ensure your portfolio is in tip-top shape for 2021.
Time to rebalance
While many sectors have struggled through coronavirus, Big Tech – or specifically US tech – has boomed, earning investors a small fortune in the process. That’s not a bad thing, but it does mean that your portfolio now may be a little tech-heavy because of the profits you have made over the past year. Therefore, it’s worth taking a close look at your holdings and deciding whether it’s best to cash in some of your profits on your US tech stocks and using it to rebalance your portfolio a little. For example, you may decide you want to take some of that money and invest in emerging market equities, unloved UK stocks or classic defensive stocks that tend to perform well in volatile markets.
Our portfolios are automatically rebalanced to ensure our clients never become too exposed to one asset or investment holding and risk levels are maintained at an acceptable level.
Reassess your goals
It’s always a good idea to reassess your investment goals from time to time, so why not at the start of a new year? The chances are your life has changed considerably since you first opened your stocks and shares ISA or your general investing account. You may have got married, had children, started a new career or bought a new house. If that’s the case, you may need to reassess your long-term savings goals and work out if your portfolio is geared up to achieve them.
Protect yourself against inflation
As well as being devastating for health and the economy, coronavirus – and multiple lockdowns that have accompanied it – has had a huge impact on our spending habits. Those of us lucky enough to keep our jobs and were able to work from home have found that we have saved a considerable sum over the past year. In fact, UK households have reportedly squirreled away more than £100bn since the start of the pandemic.
However, sooner or later things will get back to normal, and it is likely that households will open up the purse strings again. If that does happen, it means one thing: inflation. A tried and trusted way to combat inflation is to invest in gold, which is seen as a store of value and therefore a good hedge against rising prices. That said, it’s not wise to overexpose yourself to gold, a small allocation as part of a diversified portfolio will suffice.
Your financial adviser will be able to advise you on an appropriate investment in the precious yellow metal.
