When should I be in the Conservative SRI portfolio?

The Wealthsimple Conservative SRI portfolio is our low risk portfolio with a focus on Socially Responsible Companies. 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. We've also built it to help align your investments with your ethics and values. The Conservative SRI portfolio would have declined by only about 10% in the 2008 downturn. 

Our Conservative SRI portfolio has 35% exposure to equities and 65% exposure to fixed income or bonds. You can read more about which assets are in Conservative SRI portfolio 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.

Note: The SRI version of our conservative portfolio has a fee that is slightly higher than our standard growth portfolio (weighted average of 0.22% instead of 0.10%). 

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 lefthand side of the screen.