The First Step to Investing: Choose Your Cornerstones
But where do I start?
It's a question I get over and over again from readers. Sure, they want to build that diversified portfolio that all the experts talk about. But with thousands of stocks and mutual funds to choose from, the entire exercise seems utterly baffling.
BUILDING THE RIGHT PORTFOLIO
First of a four-part series.
My advice: Forget, for the moment, about picking individual investments. Instead, start by sketching out the broad outline of your portfolio, including which types of investments you want to own and how much you will stash in each.
Building With Blocks
Every portfolio should begin with three building blocks: U.S. stocks, developed foreign-stock markets and high-quality U.S. interest-paying investments, such as bonds and money-market funds. Think of these as the "Big Three."
Yes, there are other parts of the global market that you might want to add to your portfolio, including real-estate investment trusts, high-yield junk bonds and emerging-market stocks. But in the end, these smaller market sectors aren't must-own assets.
By contrast, if you want a diversified portfolio, you need to keep at least some money in high-quality bonds, U.S. shares and foreign-stock markets. Indeed, the Big Three should probably account for 70% or 80% of your portfolio, and possibly more.
Mixing It Up
When you buy high-quality bonds and U.S. and foreign stocks, you are tapping into well-developed markets worth trillions of dollars. Your goal: Use these markets to strike the right balance between risk and reward, so that you have a decent shot at amassing enough money for your kid's college education and your own retirement.
Stocks, of course, offer the best chance to earn high returns. As the global economy grows, corporate profits rise. That drives share prices higher and allows companies to pay fatter dividends.
But stocks are also a dicey endeavor. Think about the huge losses suffered by technology-stock investors over the past three years and by holders of Japanese shares during the 1990s.
To avoid such disasters, you need to spread your stock portfolio across a truckload of different companies, sectors and countries. For the vast majority of investors, the only practical way to get this diversification is with mutual funds.
But even if your stocks are broadly diversified, you will still suffer gut-wrenching short-term losses. To further reduce risk, you need to toss in some bonds. Over the long run, bonds probably won't make you as much money as stocks. But bonds will often deliver gains when stocks are suffering, so they are your best bet for calming down a portfolio.
Setting Limits
Which brings us to a critical question: How much should you invest in each sector? If you want a low-risk portfolio, stashing 100% in bonds and money-market funds might seem like the smartest strategy.
But in fact, history suggests that a portfolio with 75% bonds and 25% stocks performs no more erratically than an all-bond portfolio, but it should be far more rewarding. How can that be? When bonds tumble, stocks sometimes post gains, helping to smooth out a portfolio's performance.
Similarly, if you want the highest possible return, the temptation is to go for 100% stocks. But if you plunk 10% in bonds, you will trim risk without sacrificing much, if anything, in long-run returns.
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One-Stop Shopping
With the mutual funds below, you can get a diversified portfolio in a single fund without paying a "load," or sales charge.
Fund Minimum Investment Phone
Aggressive Investors
Fidelity Four-in-One Index $10,000 800-343-3548
T. Rowe Price Retirement 2020 2,500 800-638-5660
Vanguard LifeStrategy Growth 3,000 800-662-7447
Moderate-Risk Investors
TIAA-CREF Managed Allocation 2,500 800-223-1200
Vanguard STAR Fund 1,000 800-662-7447
Conservative Investors
Fidelity Freedom 2010 2,500 800-343-3548
Vanguard LifeStrategy Conservative Growth 3,000 800-662-7447
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Admittedly, we're still talking about 90% stocks at one extreme and 25% stocks at the other. But remember, these are the extremes. The vast majority of investors should hold portfolios with between 40% and 80% stocks, with the rest in bonds.
The lesson: There may be a bewildering array of stocks and mutual funds. But it turns out that the range of sensible portfolios is pretty small.
What about foreign stocks? I have heard experts advocate putting as much as half of a stock portfolio in foreign stocks and as little as 10%. But again, these are the extremes. Most investors should probably earmark 20% or 30% of their stock portfolio for foreign shares.
Put it all together, and a conservative investor might have 60% bonds, 30% U.S. stocks and 10% foreign stocks. Meanwhile, an aggressive investor might have 60% U.S. stocks, 20% foreign shares and 20% bonds.
Running the Numbers
Once you have sketched out your portfolio's broad outline, you next need to think about how much you want to customize your portfolio -- and thus how many mutual funds you should own.
If you prefer the simple life, you could buy a single fund that includes a smattering of the Big Three investments. You can find a list of such funds in the accompanying chart.
Alternatively, you could build your own portfolio, by combining a high-quality bond fund, a foreign-stock fund and a well-diversified U.S. stock fund. Like that idea? You could take this further, divvying up your U.S. stock exposure between a large-company-stock fund and a small-stock fund and putting some of your bond money into a money-market fund.
You might even divide up your large stocks and small stocks, so that you own a large-company growth fund, a large-value fund, a small-growth fund and a small-value fund. Growth funds buy shares of rapidly expanding companies, while value funds favor stocks that are cheap compared with assets or current earnings. By using these more specialized funds, you can fine tune your investment mix, while also aiming to bolster returns by picking superior funds in each market niche.
But whether you buy a single mutual fund or a fistful of more-specialized offerings, don't lose sight of your overriding goal: You want a portfolio that includes the Big Three assets and you want to make sure you have the right amount invested in each.
投资第一步：奠定投资基石
投资起步从何开始呢？不断地有读者问我这个问题。的确，他们希望像所有的投资专家谈论的那样确定一个分散化的投资组合。但可供选择的股票和共同基金数以千计，因此，整个选择过程就常常令人感到困惑。
我的建议是：暂时不要考虑选择具体哪一项投资。你首先应该确定投资组合的基本框架，包括你希望拥有哪种投资工具、每一种又打算投多少钱等。
每个投资组合必然包括以下三大类投资，即美国股票、成熟的外国市场股票以及美国高质量的付息投资工具（诸如债券和货币市场基金）。你可以把它们当作组成投资组合的“三大主力”。
当然，全球市场上可能还有一些其他投资工具，你也希望加入到自己的投资组合中，包括房地产信托投资基金、高收益率的垃圾债券、新兴市场的股票等。但归根结底，这些在市场上份额相对较小的投资工具不一定非得列入你的投资组合中。
但是，如果你想做到投资组合分散化，那你至少需要把一定数量的资金投入到高质量债券、美国股票和外国股票中。事实上，这“三大主力”应该在你的投资组合中占到70%或80%的比例，甚至更多。
如果你购买了高质量债券、美国股票和外国股票，那么等于你是在价值数万亿美元的成熟市场中掘金。你的目标就是利用这些市场在风险和收益之间取得平衡，既能保证孩子的大学教育经费，又让自己的退休生活没有后顾之忧。
投资股票的回报率最高。随著全球经济复苏，企业利润也会增长。这将推动股价走高，并能让企业派发相当丰厚的股息。
但投资股市也充满了风险。科技类股投资者过去3年中遭受了重大损失，还有20世纪90年代期间持有日本股票的投资者也付出过惨重代价，这些都是最好的证明。
为了避免类似的灾难，你的股票组合必须由不同公司、不同行业以及不同国家的股票组成。对于绝大多数投资者来说，获得如此高分散程度的唯一可行办法就是投资共同基金。
即使你的股票组合已经充分分散化了，你还是有可能遭受短期损失。为了进一步降低风险，你需要买进一些债券。从长期来看，债券很可能不会象股票那么赚钱，但债券通常在股票下跌的时候盈利，这样它们就成为平衡投资组合的最佳选择。
接下来我们就面临一个很关键的问题：对每种投资工具，我们应该投入多少钱？如果你希望要一个低风险的投资组合，看上去把资金全部投入到债券和货币市场基金上可能是一种最为明智的战略。
但实际上，历史经验表明，一个包含75%债券和25%股票的投资组合并不比一个完全是债券的投资组合风险更大。而前者的收益显然会多得多。怎么会这样呢？这是因为当债券下跌的时候，股票有时候会上涨，有助于提升投资组合的表现。
同样，对于那些想尽可能地获取高回报的人来说，全部投资股票也是一种诱惑。但实际上，如果你在投资组合中加入10%的债券，你将会降低投资风险，而从长期来看这并不会减少多少回报。
其实，我们所谈论的90%的股票比例和25%的股票比例都还属于极端的情况。一般说来，绝大多数投资者应该在投资组合中持有40%到80%的股票，其余为债券。
经验之谈：也许股票和共同基金有各种各样的组合方式，但实践表明那些合情合理的投资组合的范围是相当狭小的。
外国股票怎么样呢？我曾听到过一些专家建议将多达半数的资金投到外国股票上，也有的建议仅投入10%。我还要说这些也都是极端的情况，一般说来，大多数投资者应该在投资组合中持有20%到30%的外国股票。
综上所述，一个保守的投资者可能会持有60%的债券、30%的美国股票和10%的外国股票；而一个大胆的投资者可以持有60%的美国股票、20%的外国股票和20%的债券。
一旦你确定了投资组合的基本框架，接下来你就需要考虑怎样定制投资组合的问题。也要考虑一下你将购买多少共同基金。
如果你希望简单一点，你可以购买一只投资于上述三大主力产品的基金。
另外，你也可以自己动手组建投资组合，同时购买高质量的债券基金、外国股票基金和充分分散化的美国股票基金。觉得这个主意怎么样？你甚至可以更进一步，把你对美国股票的投资细分为大型股基金和小型股基金，以及把一部份债券资金投入到货币市场基金上。
你还可以再把大型股基金和小型股基金再细化为大型股成长基金、大型股价值基金，小型股成长基金和小型股价值基金。成长基金投资于那些迅速扩张公司的股票，而价值基金更青睐那些根据资产或当前每股收益比较起来相对廉价的股票。通过购买这些分类更加细致的基金，你可以对投资组合实施“微调”。另外，这样也能让你在不同的市场上选择优胜的基金，从而提高回报率。
但不管你是购买一只共同基金，还是购买投资定位更加细分的多只基金，你都不能忘记首要的目标：即投资组合要包括上述三类主力投资，并且你要在每类投资中上分配适量的资金。
