Kickstart Your Financial Year
How to Reboot Your Investment Strategy
By Dylan Rodrigues
The start of a new year is the perfect time to take stock of your financial goals and ensure your investment portfolio is aligned with your aspirations. Resetting your portfolio means more than just minor adjustments – it is about rethinking your approach where necessary and ensuring every element serves your financial objectives. Here are some practical tips to review and reset your portfolio for 2025:
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Reassess Your Financial Goals
Your financial goals may have evolved over the past year. Whether it is saving for a dream home, planning for your children’s education, or working toward early retirement, your short- and long-term goals should be revisited to ensure your portfolio reflects these priorities. Depending on your goals, you might need to invest more aggressively or alternatively, adopt a more conservative approach.
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Evaluate Your Asset Allocation
An effective portfolio is diversified across different asset classes such as cash, bonds, property, and equities. Further diversification includes investing in such asset classes locally or offshore. It is important to assess whether your current asset allocation is still appropriate for your risk tolerance and time horizon. For instance, in retirement, you may want to reduce exposure to high-risk assets like equities. Conversely, younger investors with a longer investment time frame should benefit from aggressive growth assets over the long term.
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Rebalance Your Portfolio
Over time, some funds or stocks outperform others, which can skew your portfolio’s original allocation weighting. Rebalancing involves selling and reinvesting the underlying funds or stocks in your portfolio to restore your portfolio to your desired allocation based on your risk and return requirements. Don’t forget the effect of capital gains when considering the re-balancing of your portfolio.
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Consolidate Your Investments
Having too many investments across various platforms can make it harder to track performance and stay organised. A practical tip to reset your portfolio this year would be to see whether certain investments could be consolidated, and further, to consolidate all investments onto the same platform where applicable. The benefits of doing so include possible fee savings, consolidated reporting of performance as well as peace of mind knowing where all your investments are.
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Work with a Professional
Identifying appropriate asset classes to invest in can be challenging given the constant volatility in local and global markets. Although the volatility adds to uncertainty, it also brings opportunities. A professional financial planner can help guide and provide personalised guidance tailored to your unique circumstances and help you avoid any emotional decision-making. Your financial planner can also keep you informed about any local or global trends and how this could affect your portfolio.
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Commit to Regular Reviews
A successful portfolio is not set and forgotten. Schedule regular reviews (annually or biannually) to ensure your investments remain aligned with your goals, the markets and with your risk and return requirements.
Final Thoughts
Resetting your investment portfolio at the start of the year is about taking proactive steps to secure your financial future. With the right strategies in place, 2025 could be the year you take significant strides toward achieving your wealth-building aspirations. Take charge of your investments today – your future self will thank you.
Read more about Ascor® Financial Planning Services
Related Topics
https://ascor.co.za/spring-clean-your-finances_review-and-update-your-beneficiary-nominations-today/
https://ascor.co.za/mid-year-money-makeover-how-to-stay-on-track-with-your-financial-goals/
https://ascor.co.za/how-to-conduct-a-mid-year-financial-review/
https://ascor.co.za/staying-on-track-in-a-changing-world-revisiting-your-financial-goals/
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