Financial planning · South Africa
How often should I review my investment portfolio?
A scheduled review, often annually, is a useful starting point for a stable long-term plan. Bring it forward when your income, spending deadlines, family circumstances or investment arrangements change materially. Keep account security and payments under closer observation. Reviewing asks whether the plan still works; rebalancing or switching is a separate decision, with costs and consequences of its own.
In this article
Give each kind of review a different job
The problem with asking how often to check a portfolio is that checking can mean opening a balance screen, confirming an income payment, assessing a retirement plan or authorising a trade. Those activities need different schedules.
| Activity | What deserves attention | Useful outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Account administration | Unexpected transactions, missed payments, changes to bank details or access | Verify the event promptly through an established provider channel |
| Household review | Goals, spending, income, debt, dependants, access dates and ability to bear loss | Confirm or revise the job assigned to the money |
| Investment review | Actual exposures, mandate changes, costs and implementation against that job | Record whether the existing arrangement remains consistent with the plan |
| Trading decision | A justified change, tax, dealing costs, restrictions and responsibility | A separately considered instruction, or a documented decision to leave holdings alone |
A yearly household review does not mean ignoring a missing pension payment for eleven months. Equally, checking that the payment arrived does not require reconsidering the underlying funds every month.
Allan Gray's review guidance uses an annual review as a general starting point and identifies changes in personal circumstances as reasons to reconsider arrangements. That is a planning convention, not evidence that twelve months is optimal for every household. Someone approaching a property transfer or retirement date may need several decisions within a short period. Someone with stable circumstances may finish a scheduled review without a trade.
Let deadlines interrupt the calendar
Suppose a family has an investment intended for a home deposit in three years. The purchase unexpectedly moves forward to four months from now. The relevant change is the date on which usable cash is required. Waiting for the next anniversary review could leave too little time to check notice periods, settlement, tax and transfer arrangements.
This does not establish which asset to sell. First identify the amount, deadline, account, authorised decision-maker and any funding already available elsewhere. The retirement account may have a completely different purpose and access restrictions. Moving everything together because one goal changed would confuse those jobs.
The same reasoning applies to a lost salary, a dependant's care costs or a material change in pension income. A market move can also merit attention if it changes an exposure or threatens a near-term obligation. Its size alone does not settle the response.
The relevant question is: what decision could become harder or more expensive if this waits? This produces a more useful trigger than a rule to review whenever the news feels alarming. For that separate problem, see how to respond to market news.
Measure the drift before deciding to rebalance
Consider an invented portfolio at two valuation dates. It starts with R4 million: R2.4 million in equities and R1.6 million in bonds. Between the dates, equities rise by 25% and bonds are unchanged. There are no other cash flows, fees or taxes in this illustration.
Equities are now worth R3 million. The portfolio totals R4.6 million, so equities represent 65.22%, calculated as R3 million ÷ R4.6 million. Their weight has risen by 5.22 percentage points from the original 60%.
Assume, solely to examine the arithmetic, that the previously chosen 60% equity target still applies. A review must establish that independently; the example does not recommend a 60/40 portfolio.
| Position at the review date | Total portfolio | Equity value before any sale | Equity value at the assumed 60% target | Equity sale needed to reach that target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No new cash | R4,600,000 | R3,000,000 | R2,760,000 | R240,000 |
| R200,000 new cash added to the bond allocation | R4,800,000 | R3,000,000 | R2,880,000 | R120,000 |
The new cash reduces the required sale by R120,000, not R200,000, because adding money also changes the target rand amounts. Before a sale, the second portfolio has 62.5% equities. It is closer to 60%, but has not reached it.
That distinction matters when someone says contributions will rebalance the account. Sometimes they will; sometimes they only reduce the gap. Confirm that the cash is genuinely available for investment and is not needed for a tax payment or household expense.
These are valuation and allocation identities, not forecasts of investment benefits. Actual implementation may involve tax, spreads, fees, minimum trades, settlement delays and movements between valuation and execution. A sale in a taxable account can have capital-gains consequences even if the household is simply restoring its intended mix.
Write the trigger precisely
An instruction to act after a “5% change” is ambiguous. Starting from a 60% equity weight:
- Five percentage points takes the upper boundary to 65%.
- Five per cent of the starting weight takes it to 63%, because 60% × 1.05 = 63%.
Neither is a recommended threshold. A usable policy states the measure, permitted range, valuation frequency, who checks it and what happens when it is crossed. It also distinguishes an investigation trigger from permission to trade.
Rebalancing need not always restore a portfolio exactly to its target. In its own target-date funds, Vanguard describes a threshold policy with a partial reset, designed around its implementation costs and investment process. Its institutional experience does not establish a suitable threshold for a South African retail account. It demonstrates why “rebalance fully every year” is not a universal operating rule.
Regulatory and contractual boundaries also differ from a voluntary investment band. A retirement fund's Regulation 28 limits cannot simply be replaced by the household's preferred tolerance. Establish who monitors each constraint before assuming that an annual meeting covers it.
Check who is already doing the work
A balanced fund manager may rebalance underlying holdings inside the fund. A discretionary manager may act within a separate mandate. The household can still drift because of new savings, withdrawals or assets held elsewhere. Conversely, trading fund units every time their underlying managers trade can create unnecessary activity.
Ask for the division of responsibility in writing. Who monitors the mandate? Who checks cash needed for withdrawals? Who may authorise changes? Which changes require the client's consent? What circumstances prompt contact between scheduled meetings?
Do not infer these services from the existence of an ongoing fee. The agreed scope, reports and actual work matter. Questions to ask an adviser address the engagement; this article addresses the review schedule that engagement needs to support.
Consider a retiree whose discretionary manager monitors the investment allocation, while an administrator pays a monthly annuity. A new R90,000 roof repair is due in six weeks. Neither an in-range allocation nor confirmation that the usual payment will arrive answers how the repair is funded. The manager may not know about the bill; the administrator may have no mandate to assess it. Someone must reconcile available household cash, the contract's payment options and the repair deadline. A review calendar that names only the investment manager has left that decision unassigned.
The living-annuity terms used as a provider example, effective 26 August 2026, describe an anniversary process for income changes. They do not establish an on-demand withdrawal facility for an unexpected bill, and another product's terms must be checked separately. The household review needs to identify that timing constraint before anyone assumes the investment account can fund the repair.
A useful review also checks whether the original rationale can still be tested. “Markets were difficult” explains little. A more specific record might say that the spending date is unchanged, the next withdrawal is funded, exposure remains within the agreed range, and no relevant mandate or cost change was identified. If one of those statements is unknown, assign someone to resolve it.
Leave a record that makes the next review easier
The portfolio review record separates evidence from decisions. Record the goal and cash deadline; valuation date and actual exposures; intended target or range; changes since the previous review; available contributions or withdrawals; tax and dealing constraints; responsible person; decision and reason; and the next date or event that reopens it.
“No trade” can be a considered outcome. It is different from an unanswered question that has been postponed. For example, confirmed funding for next year's expenditure may support leaving a long-term account untouched; an unconfirmed withdrawal facility leaves a task outstanding even if the portfolio mix looks appropriate.
ClearGauge's judgement: a review earns its place by resolving a decision or assigning an unresolved one. More meetings are not automatically better oversight, and fewer trades are not proof of good advice. The evidence is whether material changes were noticed in time and dealt with for a reason that survives scrutiny.
The rebalancing arithmetic preserves the invented inputs above. No return improvement is attributed to the review or to advice.
Sources and scope checked 6 September 2026. Allan Gray's article is dated 31 December 2015; Vanguard's account discusses its institutional policy and April 2025 experience. Neither supplies a universal household review interval. This is general information, not a personal asset allocation, trading instruction or assessment of suitability. Obtain advice on actual circumstances before implementing a material change.