The final part of your investment plan is describing how you will monitor, reevaluate, and balance your portfolio. Monitor your performance. Compare the performance of each of your assets against benchmarks on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis. How did your assets perform? Which assets had returns that were greater than their benchmarks, and which assets had returns that were less than their benchmarks?

Setting goals is not a one-time event. You should continually review and reevaluate your goals. Has your situation in life changed? Which goals need to be changed to accommodate your situation in life?

Finally, has your portfolio shifted away from your target asset allocations because of time or because of the performance of your assets? How will you rebalance your portfolio to regain your target allocations, while at the same time minimizing the tax effects of rebalancing? We will discuss the topic of rebalancing in more detail in later sections.