Financial Decoder

How Should Your Goals Shape Your Portfolio?

13 snips
Nov 24, 2025
In this insightful discussion, guest Steph Shadel, a seasoned wealth advisor at Schwab with extensive credentials, shares wisdom on aligning your financial portfolio with personal goals. She redefines risk as volatility, explains the importance of diversification and disciplined rebalancing, and debunks myths about portfolio management. Steph emphasizes managing emotions, using tax strategies to optimize investments, and reviewing financial plans during life changes, ensuring your strategy fits your unique circumstances.
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INSIGHT

Portfolio Implements Your Plan

  • A portfolio is the way you implement your financial plan and should reflect your goals, preferences, and risk capacity.
  • The right portfolio is one you can stick with through good and bad markets because wealth building takes time.
ADVICE

Show Risk In Dollars

  • Translate allocation percentages into dollar amounts to make potential losses feel real and test comfort with risk.
  • Ask clients which historical loss they'd accept to reveal willingness to stick with the plan during downturns.
INSIGHT

Diversification Reduces Specific Risk

  • Diversification reduces specific risk but cannot eliminate market risk, so accept some level of variability.
  • The goal is to spread risk across uncorrelated assets to smooth returns, not avoid risk entirely.
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