Looking for a hot stock to own for the next few months? An exchange-traded fund that will help you capitalize on trouble in the Middle East? You’ll have no trouble finding ideas in the financial media.
Meanwhile, advice on how to apportion your portfolio among stocks, bonds, and cash–while a much more significant factor in your portfolio’s long-term performance–is apt to be much tougher to come by. While there’s no shortage of commentators who are willing to predict the market’s short-term direction, telling investors to set a sensible stock/bond mix and sit tight is inherently less sexy, so you hear much less about the whole issue.