When should I be in the Conservative portfolio?

The Wealthsimple Conservative portfolio is our low risk portfolio. In other words, we built this portfolio with the goal of limiting short term fluctuations while still trying to generate returns that can modestly outpace the rate of inflation. The Conservative portfolio would have declined by only about 10% in the 2008 downturn. 

Our Conservative portfolio has 35% exposure to equities and 65% exposure to fixed income or bonds. You can read more about which assets are in the non-registered (ie. taxable/personal) or registered (ie. IRA) Conservative portfolios here.

This portfolio is ideal for the following situations:

1. If you have a goal (buying a home, saving for a vacation, etc) that's fairly short-term (3-5 years) and are only comfortable with small fluctuations in your account.
2. If you're retired and are only comfortable with small fluctuations in your account.
3. If fluctuations in your account make you very nervous but you're okay with a low level of fluctuations to try to grow the funds by more than what a savings account can generate.

If you feel like your accounts should be more conservative than they are at the moment, you can change your risk profile by navigating to any of your portfolios from the main landing page (using a desktop computer) and choosing an option from the Portfolio Type dropdown menu on the left hand side of the screen.