At its most basic level, diversification recognizes that asset classes — such as equities and bonds — carry different risks and rewards. By combining multiple sources of return, investors can potentially reduce downside risk while still participating in long?term growth as those returns unfold over time.
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In other words, diversification isn’t about novelty for its own sake. It’s about building resilience when conditions inevitably shift.
Here are some key points to understand about diversification:
— The origins of investment diversification.
— How diversification has worked in practice.
— Portfolio planning for short- and long-term goals.
— Portfolio construction, recalibrated.
— Why diversification helps ease the pain of losses.
The Origins of Investment Diversification
The modern concept of diversification is most often credited to U.S. economist Harry Markowitz. In his seminal 1952 Journal of Finance paper, “Portfolio Selection,” Markowitz argued that risk and return must be considered together when designing portfolios. His work later earned him the Nobel Prize and laid the foundation for what’s known as “modern portfolio theory.”
The idea also predates modern finance. The familiar proverb about not putting all your eggs in one basket appears as early as Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote,” capturing the timeless wisdom of avoiding over?concentration in any single outcome.
Victoria Fernandez, chief market strategist at Crossmark Global Investments, puts it plainly: “We are all familiar with the old adage, ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’ It is no different when it comes to investing. If you go 100% in on one particular area, and either a black swan event, a change in consumer sentiment, bad earnings or whatever the case may be occurs, your entire investment portfolio is at risk.”
How Diversification Has Worked in Practice
For many investors, diversification across core equities and bonds has proven effective over the past two decades. Research from Capital Group and Morningstar shows that a hypothetical 60/40 portfolio of global stocks and bonds produced positive returns in 15 years of the 20-year period between 2005 and 2024.
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Still, diversification does not eliminate volatility. That same 60/40 mix experienced drawdowns of approximately 28% in 2008 and 18% in 2022. While infrequent, these declines can strain financial plans — especially for retirees who rely on portfolios for both income and growth.
Portfolio Planning for Short- and Long?Term Goals
Today’s market environment has pushed investors to rethink diversification beyond a simple stock?and?bond framework. Nate Thooft, chief investment officer and senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management, advocates for a broader approach built around five key elements:
— A wider array of assets, including private markets, real assets and alternative assets.
— Global exposure that weighs country? and region?specific risks.
— Protection against interest?rate and inflation shocks.
— Scenario analysis and stress testing for extreme outcomes.
— Clear awareness of time horizon and liquidity needs.
Diversification works best when portfolios are built around objectives first, says Scott Helfstein, head of investment strategy at Global X. “Selecting asset classes based on goals, risk tolerance and expectations remains a cornerstone of investing,” he says. “Diversification is a risk?management tool first and foremost.”
Portfolio Construction, Recalibrated
Many institutional investors are reassessing what diversification means in practice. “The old idea of diversification — owning a little of a lot — is outdated,” Thooft says. “Today, it’s about focusing on resilience across assets, factors and risks to thrive in a world defined by complexity, speed, massive data quantities and interconnection.”
That shift is already showing up in portfolio designs. Nearly two-thirds of global institutional investors (65%) say they believe a portfolio composed of 60% stocks, 20% bonds, and 20% alternatives will outperform the traditional 60/40 stock and bond portfolio next year, according to data from the 2026 Natixis Institutional Outlook Survey. The same survey revealed global investors intend to allocate the majority of their alternative allocation to private equity (31%), private credit (17%), real estate (16%) and infrastructure (14%).
Why Diversification Helps Ease the Pain of Losses
Beyond math and models, diversification also addresses investor behavior. In their research article “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk,” behavioral scientists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky revealed that the pain of loss is psychologically twice as powerful as the pleasure of a gain.
This is a cognitive bias called loss aversion, and it may help explain why, according to Morningstar, investors yanked $370 billion from U.S. bond and equity mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, as the market plummeted in 2022.
Even so, “when markets sell off, asset correlations tend to converge,” Helfstein says. He suggests algorithmic and artificial intelligence trading models probably exaggerate the magnitude of the downturn and the speed toward converging correlations. Helfstein maintains, however, that “diversification is most valuable when markets correct.”
Takeaway
In the end, diversification isn’t about finding the single “best” investment — it’s about having enough good options when conditions inevitably change. And while diversification isn’t a panacea — even a 60/40 portfolio is prone to somewhat regular downturns — it’s the simplest way to reduce volatility without impacting expected returns, which is why diversification is often hailed as “the only free lunch in investing.”
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Why Diversification Is Important in Investing originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 12/24/25: This story was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
