You have set personal goals, implemented a budget, developed an investment plan, evaluated your investment options, and purchased your financial assets according to your asset-allocation targets. In addition to the steps you have taken to build your portfolio, you must repeat three steps throughout the life of your portfolio in order for your portfolio to be a success. First, you must monitor your portfolio’s performance and compare asset performance to benchmarks; second, you must evaluate asset performance; and third, you must rebalance your portfolio as necessary to keep it within the targets defined in your investment plan. This section will begin with a discussion of benchmarks and will then discuss each of the three steps that must be repeated throughout the life of your portfolio.

When you have completed this section, you should be able to do the following:

1. Understand portfolio rebalancing.
2. Manage and evaluate your portfolio return.
3. Calculate risk-adjusted performance.
4. Perform a portfolio return attribution analysis.

Understanding how and when to rebalance and evaluate your portfolio is an important part of successful investing.