Robert Brokamp

There have certainly been some speed bumps, but I think people are feeling pretty good about portfolios.

Do you take that into consideration when you talk to a client and you're like, maybe you should dial it back.

You may feel pretty good right now, but you may be feeling good because the market is doing well.

You mentioned Megan, I'll just clarify that Megan is one of our colleagues at Motley Fool Wealth Management who was our guest on last week's episode.

We had a great discussion about Ross advice gone wrong, so make sure you listen to that.

Yeah, and that quilt I think is always instructive because I call out asset allocation sort of like the hokey pokey, whereas one year one type of investment is in and the next year it's out.

Whereas a well-diversified portfolio just kind of rides along in the middle.

It's never the number one, it's never the bottom, but it's a nice smooth ride.

As people begin to receive their year-end statements, there's always how their portfolio or that specific account performed.

And there's usually a benchmark in there somewhere.

It might be the S&P 500.

It might be some MSCI index.

And it always occurs to me that in many ways, those benchmarks aren't appropriate, right?

This portfolio may have cash and bonds and international stocks.

Why are you comparing it to the S&P 500?

Do you think benchmarking is all that important, like to compare yourself relative to some index, or is it more important just to make sure you have enough money to accomplish your financial goals?

To get it this time, I think it's challenging to benchmark your portfolio against the S&P 500 because it is basically been the asset class of choice over the last five, 10 years, right?

US large cap stocks have outperformed just about everything.

So if you had international, if you had small caps, if you had value, and of course, if you had cash and bonds, that was a drag on your portfolio, but that doesn't mean it was inappropriate for your situation.

So I think that's important context, because if you do benchmark the S&P 500, you're probably going to not look so great if you had a well-diversified portfolio, but it still might have been the right choice for you.