📖Benjamin Graham

Rebalancing

🌱 Beginner★★★★★

Periodically rebalance your portfolio to restore target allocations and systematically sell high and buy low.

💬

The investor should periodically rebalance his portfolio to maintain the desired asset allocation.

— _The Intelligent Investor_，1949

🏠 Everyday Analogy

Just as a vegetable garden requires regular weeding and fertilizing, an investment portfolio also needs periodic maintenance. When stocks have risen significantly, it is like chives growing too tall—they should be appropriately harvested. When the proportion of bonds is too low, it is like soil lacking nutrients—it should be replenished promptly. Only by maintaining a reasonable balance among various asset classes can the garden of investments yield a sustained and bountiful harvest.

📖 Core Interpretation

Regular rebalancing to maintain the target asset allocation ratio.
💎 Key Insight：Rebalancing is a disciplined mechanism for maintaining risk control. After stocks rise, selling some to restore your target allocation forces you to take profits. After stocks fall, buying more to rebalance forces you to buy cheap. This automatic contrarian behavior improves risk-adjusted returns over time.

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❓ Why It Matters

Rebalancing enforces the practice of "selling high and buying low," thereby maintaining the desired risk level.

🎯 How to Practice

Annually, or when the allocation deviates by more than 5%, rebalance back to the target proportions.

🎙️ Master's Voice

The investor who permits himself to be stampeded or unduly worried by unjustified market declines is perversely transforming his basic advantage into a basic disadvantage.
Graham saw that panicking during declines turned temporary paper losses into permanent real losses. Patience was the defensive investor's edge.

⚔️ Practical Guide

✅ Decision Checklist

  • Am I panicking at declines?
  • Am I converting paper losses to real losses?
  • Am I patient?

📋 Action Steps

  1. Stay calm in declines
  2. Hold through volatility
  3. Don't convert paper losses to real

🚨 Warning Signs

  • Panic selling
  • Emotional reactions
  • Turning advantage to disadvantage

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

✕Excessively frequent rebalancing increases transaction costs.
✕Once a year is sufficient.

📚 Case Studies

1
Dot-Com Bubble Rebalance (2000)
A diversified investor periodically sold overheated tech stocks and added to undervalued industrials and consumer staples through 1998–2000.
✨ Outcome：When the bubble burst in 2000–2002, portfolio losses were limited and value holdings outperformed, validating disciplined rebalancing.
2
Pre-Crisis Allocation Discipline (2008)
An investor rebalanced annually, trimming surging equities in 2006–2007 and increasing bond holdings despite market optimism.
✨ Outcome：During the 2008 financial crisis, the portfolio fell less than the market and rebalancing back into equities supported a faster recovery by 2010.

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