Saxo Group
Summary: When you build a portfolio, it's normal to invest in what you know best - a few tech names you like or familiar stocks from your home market. But while that might give you a portfolio that feels comfortable, it's far from bullet-proof. Why? Because it lacks one key-element: diversification.
When you diversify your portfolio, you’re spreading your money across different investments. That means your total investment nest egg isn’t weighted too heavily in one thing – so, if your favorite tech stocks suddenly get volatile or your home market takes a dramatic downturn, your portfolio as a whole won’t be so vulnerable.
Less risk is just one benefit of diversifying your portfolio. Casting your investing net wider – across the globe if possible – also means you’ll be able to catch more opportunities in the financial markets.
Remember the skyrocketing Chinese stock markets in 2014-15? Or the Tesla rally in 2020? By flexing your investing muscles and adding a variety of assets, you’ll not only keep your portfolio more balanced, you’ll also be better placed to find new opportunities around the globe.
Holding a well-diversified portfolio does usually also lead to less volatile returns. With only a few investments, your portfolio performance is likely to differ significantly from year to year, while a broader range of investments tends to generate a smoother return development.
Making that initial choice to diversify is the easy bit but identifying what to invest in and the number of investments is slightly trickier.
As a starting point, you should consider holding a mix of various asset classes, such as equities, ETFs, bonds and commodities. Via investments in these different asset classes, you can gain further diversification by picking different types of individual investments within the chosen asset classes.
One easy way of doing this is to browse different asset classes and filter out investments based on different criteria. In SaxoTraderGO, you can use the screener function to find individual investments based on filters such as geography, industry, bond issuer and market capitalisation.
Another way of building a diversified portfolio is to apply a thematic investment approach, where you start picking a few investment themes, or long-term market trends, you believe in. In SaxoTraderGO and SaxoInvestor, you can find a big pool of long-term investment themes, which are handpicked for their future upside potential. The themes range from sustainability to digitalisation and come with inspirational investment lists, with instruments spread out across geographies, industries and company sizes, that give you a well-diversified exposure to the theme you believe in.
If you prefer to “buy the entire theme” over investing in single instruments, you can chose to invest in one of the related ETFs, which gives you an instant diversified theme exposure through only one investment.
While there are different opinions about the optimal number of investments in a diversified portfolio, there’s no single correct answer to this question. However, as a general rule of thumb, most investors (both retail and professional) hold at least 15-20 instruments in their portfolio.
A new fragmented world order can render some of today's infrastructure obselete, but it also calls for massive new investments across the globe, which requires a new set of strategic and tactical investment strategies.
Steen Jakobsen,
Chief Investment Officer
As globalisation turns to fragmentation, China seems set on playing a role in the global economy, while simultaneously working towards proofing its own economic situation from external shocks and crises.
Redmond Wong,
Market Strategist
The recent bank runs and ensuing challenges are reminicent of something we've seen before. Will it end like the S&L crises of 1986 and 1995?
Chris Dembik,
Head of Macroeconomic Research
Equity markets need to recalibrate to another - fragmented - global world. What's your view on equities in this market - are they going up or down?
Peter Garnry,
Head of Equity Strategy
With every development comes new opportunites, some of which could be in India. Have you considered the country as a part of your diversification strategy?
Charu Chanana,
Market Strategist
A collar is an option strategy that allows some protection while maintaining some upside potential. What investment would you like to use a collar strategy for?
Hans Oudshoorn,
Trainer Academy
There are arguments to be made for many commodities to have upside. Which are you paying the most attention to this quarter?
Ole S. Hansen,
Head of Commodity Strategy
In a very challenging macro environment, which currencies do you think will come out on top?
John J. Hardy,
Head of FX Strategy
