Pay attention to multiple markets when creating your portfolio. For example, the equity market, the treasury and bond market, the energy market, and the gold market. All of these markets when utilized correctly can play a vital role in your portfolio success. Many investors focus on the equity markets only or try to diversify by investing in different parts of the equity market.

True diversification comes from investing in more than one type of market.

Have a Strategy!

Understand that bear markets inevitably occur. Investors need to recognize when a bear market is on the horizon and how to handle that market. Moreover, investors need to determine when the market trend changes.

Creating a portfolio strategy that helps avoid long protracted bear markets is paramount to investment success.

No one can predict the future, so we are all left trying to analyze the past to understand what may happen going forward.

The first step in creating a portfolio is identifying how it might have performed during market stress periods. Examples of these are the DotCom Crash, the Great Financial Crisis, and the COVID Start Bear Markets. 

Once an investor has this information they are well on their way to understanding the risks associated with the portfolio they have selected.

Backtesting a portfolio helps prepare an investor for the ever-changing market conditions.