THE CHOICES YOU MAKE TODAY EFFECT THE LIFESTYLE YOU LEAD TOMORROW

When Mark Twain said "Put all your eggs in the one basket and watch that basket", he was right -especially in relation to investment. Greater care and eternal vigilance is required when all your financial resources are invested in one place.

In order to successfully achieve your investment goals, particularly from a long-term perspective, it is essential to avoid "putting all your eggs in one basket". When you spread your money across several different types of investment or "asset classes" - known as diversification - you reduce the risk level of your investment portfolio. It is also a more reliable strategy for achieving consistent returns over time. History has shown that there is no asset class that consistently has the lowest annual performance.

If you are heavily weighted in a particular stock or asset class, there is a risk that it can lead to a fall in the overall value of your investment over a short period of time, but when you spread your risk, you can offset negative returns in one asset class against positive returns in another class.

It is also sensible to diversify your money across different investment managers, as it is unlikely that one manager will consistently do better than another and managers are rarely specialists in all asset classes. A properly diversified portfolio will minimise incurring losses through market corrections. We recommend that you and your financial adviser regularly review your portfolio's spread of share, bond, property and cash investments, as well as your selection of investment managers, making sure that each suits your risk tolerance and investment time horizon.

For further information regarding investing in superannuation, please contact our Customer Service Centre on Free Call 1800 009 921.