Key Investing Concepts

All investors should understand these essential investment concepts.

Evaluating Investment Performance

To assess how well your investments are doing, you'll need to consider several different ways of measuring performance. The measures you choose will depend on the information you're looking for and the types of investments you own. Learn more.

Asset Allocation

Asset allocation is a useful tool to manage systematic risk because different categories of investments respond to changing economic and political conditions in different ways. Learn more.

Diversifying Your Portfolio

When you diversify, you aim to manage your risk by spreading out your investments. You can diversify both within and among different asset classes. Learn more.

Rebalancing Your Portfolio

As market performance alters the values of your asset classes, you may find that your asset allocation no longer provides the balance of growth and return that you want. In that case, you may want to consider rebalancing your portfolio. Learn more.

The Reality of Investment Risk

All investments carry some degree of risk. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds can lose value, even all their value, if market conditions sour. Learn more.