Rebalancing without overthinking it

Left alone, a portfolio drifts. Winners grow into an outsized share, and your risk quietly creeps up beyond what you intended. Rebalancing is just the act of trimming back to your target mix — but it’s easy to over-engineer.

You don’t need to do it constantly. A once-a-year check, or a threshold rule that triggers only when an allocation drifts far enough, captures most of the benefit while keeping costs and second-guessing low. The hard part is doing it mechanically, without letting the market’s mood talk you out of it.