Morningstar managing director Jeff Ptak conducted research that looked at what would happen if the holdings in large-cap equity mutual fund portfolios were frozen in time, with no further changes over the following decade. The surprising conclusion? The portfolios that assumed no further adjustments tended to beat the returns of the actual portfolios, which reflected the fund managers’ trading activity. In other words, the funds would have performed better had the managers stood pat rather than trading.
Investors should take that finding to heart when they manage their own portfolios. While some investors swear by frequent monitoring and rebalancing tweaks, I’ll take a policy of benign neglect any old day.
But if you’re a do-it-yourself investor aiming to build a “no babysitter required” portfolio, here are the key steps to take.
This post originally appeared at Morningstar.