by Gene Walden

Does your investment portfolio have the diversification you need to sail smoothly through the ups and downs of the market? True diversification means more than spreading your assets around to a handful of stocks or mutual funds. It means putting your assets into a variety of different types of investments beyond the stock market.

The younger you are, the more aggressive you can be. A portfolio heavily weighted in stocks while no strategy assures success or protects against loss might make sense for investors in their 20s and 30s. But the closer you are to retirement, the more important it is to spread some of your money to other types of investments, such as bonds, CDs and annuities.

Make sure you have the diversification you need to keep your portfolio on track even when the stock market falters. The first step is to sit down with your financial advisor to take a closer look at your holdings to make sure your portfolio is well enough diversified to stand the test of time.