The right approach to your portfolio improves your odds for success.

Based on emails, comments and talking with people I get the impression that a lot of folks make investing more complicated than it needs to be. Everyone knows they should be diversified but how many people are diversified?

Plenty of people have been burned making a big bet on something speculative yet they keep making big bets. A lot of people worry about a 5% decline even though history is on their side. Beating the market becomes an obsession when saving properly is far more important than year to year results. People who save properly just need to stay relatively close the market, even if they never beat it.

The realization that it can be simple is an important building block. A moderate mix of best of breed companies, foreign countries and a couple of narrow themes, combined with proper saving, will do the trick for a lot of people.

There will be market cycles, proper asset allocation in relation to when you need to start drawing income is always important and if you are so inclined and want to take steps to smooth out your ride, ok, but keeping it simple works and big bets will bite back more often than not.

Everyone knows these sorts of things but very few people act on them.

Last 5 posts by Roger Nusbaum

• The Big Picture for the Week of November 15, 2009 - November 14th, 2009
• Process Drilldown - October 23rd, 2009
• Sunday Morning Coffee 10-18-09 - October 18th, 2009
• A Little Followup From This Morning - October 8th, 2009
• Wednesday Roundup - October 7th, 2009