For the past couple of years or so, it’s been fashionable to sneer at the 60/40 portfolio. You sound smart when you do this, especially if you’re a wanna-be “finance bro” or an advisor looking for engagement on LinkedIn. 

Stocks down. Bonds down. Cue the hot takes.

• “Diversification is dead.”
• “Bonds don’t hedge anymore.”
• “Tear up the old playbook.”

It made for some great outrage, and quite a few dry academic treatises. But ultimately, it made for terrible analysis.

The 60/40 didn’t fail. Bonds did. And they failed for a very specific, very boring reason: yields were microscopic.

If you buy

Fourteen years ago, when I was a regular columnist at MoneyShow.com, a producer at CNBC found my work and invited me to audition for a new trading show the network was producing. 

I flew to New Jersey, they picked me up from my hotel in a limo, and brought me over to their studio. 

The audition consisted of a group of columnists and investors doing some quick analysis of charts that CNBC host Brian Sullivan put up on some kind of digital display. At one point, Sullivan was looking specifically for predictions of where the S&P 500 would go. 

My view of market predictions was the same back then as it is today.

They’re better at filling TV airtime than they are at helping individuals invest for retirement. 

Not long ago, I wrote this column for TheStreetPro about portfolio rebalancing. That’s one of those topics that sounds arcane, but is actually a pretty basic tenet of investment management. 

After getting your investments organized, you might have assumed the hard part is over. Or the fun part, depending on how much you enjoy spreadsheets and tracking prformance. 

But in reality, this is where the real challenge starts: Resisting the urge to tinker.

Maybe you really want to add a little more of what’s been working. A little less of what hasn’t.