Have you ever spent a day or two in a messy house? For initial hours, it feels terrible to be in such a space. After some time, you get used to it, and if you don’t do anything about it, you will start feeling comfortable living in that environment. Does living in a messed-up house make it right because you are fine with it? No. It is not right for your mental health. You will also waste a lot of time figuring out your stuff.
Your stock portfolio can be in a similar mess, you may have made peace with it by now. After all, stock portfolio management is not that easy. If you have, you are not doing the right thing.
However, we understand that cleaning up an existing mess is not easy – especially a portfolio mess – full of underperforming stocks. Today, we will learn what you can do if your stock portfolio is underperforming.
Why is your stock portfolio underperforming?
You cannot get a prescription before the disease is diagnosed. So let us first see some reasons why your portfolio may be underperforming:
- A portfolio created based on tips: If you have created your equity portfolio based on tips, the chances are that the risk level of your portfolio will be high. When the risk is high, your portfolio is volatile and may underperform for a while.
- Bought shares at the wrong price: The rule is to ‘buy low, sell high’, but you may be ‘buying high, selling low’. Investors fail to implement this simple strategy. Sadly, they do the opposite. If you buy a share at a high price, the stock prices will correct eventually. If you have many overvalued stocks, the chances are your portfolio will underperform sooner or later. No one can time the market, but you should consider valuation before picking stocks, and if you do not, your portfolio will suffer. Portfolio advisory services can help you pick stocks with fair valuations.
- You had unrealistic expectations from the market: If you have invested in the market to double your money in a year, you are most likely to have invested only in small and midcap stocks. These categories of stocks are cyclic and may not perform for a long time.
- Your portfolio is concentrated: Another possibility is that your portfolio has stocks from one particular sector, and it has not been performing well for a while. For example, in 2022, the IT index underperformed, and if you have a high allocation to IT stocks, your portfolio would have been underperforming.
Available options for investors
A deep analysis of the portfolio is essential before drawing any conclusions. For example, if the reason for underperformance is a higher allocation in IT stocks, there is nothing to panic about, and maybe you don’t need to sell your holding. The only thing you need to work on is diversification, so you can spread the risk. Every investor has three options when it comes to underperforming stocks or portfolios:
- Hold: If you are confident that you hold quality stocks, you can continue to have them.
- Buy: If the quality stocks are down, you may need to buy more to average down the cost. If under-diversification is a problem, you may need to buy more stocks from other categories for diversification, as discussed above.
- Sell: You know the reasons for underperformance, and since it is unlikely to change, you need to sell the stocks. However, even this decision is not an easy one. Which stocks are you going to sell?
What to do with an underperforming portfolio?
One of the options is to opt for traditional portfolio advisory services and let them take care of your portfolio. However, the cost in such a case is too high, and if your portfolio size is small or medium, it does not make sense to pay a high fee – your ROI will be low.
Alternatively, you can use Jarvis Protect – an AI-based product by Jarvis Invest that will scan all the stocks in your portfolio and tell you which ones you need to hold and which you should let go of.
How much should the product cost for a 50-stock portfolio? A price for a family dinner? A date? A gift for your wife? No, it only costs you the price of a movie ticket for two (popcorn not included) – Rs 399. Can you ask for more? Find out more by visiting the website.
Conclusion
If your portfolio is underperforming, you need to act now. The sooner you act, the better it is for you. If you delay, you will dent your compounding. If you have not explored the product now – try it out and remove the color red from your portfolio.