Arriving at the appropriate asset allocation is not very easy to do by guesswork, so we’re here to help. There is no such thing as a mix of assets that is right for everyone.

It depends on your age, employment situation, the size of your investment portfolio, your objectives, time horizon, risk tolerance, income requirement from your investment portfolio, tax bracket, and many other factors. Programs and algorithms can help you significantly when you plug some of these variables in, but it is still wise to apply some scrutiny and a human touch.

If the computer tells you to put 23% of your assets into High Yield Bonds, but you just learned in some breaking news that investment conditions in that asset class are not favorable currently, it would make sense to run some more numbers and find some alternatives in the meantime, or just to use a dollar cost averaging approach for the portion of your portfolio, which just means to drip money in at set intervals to try to avoid buying in with a lump sum at the wrong time.

How Do I Determine the Right Mix of Assets?
What are Asset Classes?