These types of mutual funds can be great for first time investors; within just one mutual fund, you will have
broad diversification between various types of mutual funds: large cap mutual funds, small cap mutual funds, international mutual funds, etc..
Not exact matches
The more stocks you hold, the more closely your portfolio will likely match the
broader market (assuming reasonable
diversification between companies).
Apart from the standard
diversification benefit of always having some money invested in each type of fund (as well as owning both large and small companies), the key is understanding that Upgrading's category definitions are
broad enough that within each risk category there is significant variation
between funds.
Modern Portfolio Theory postulates that the key to achieving an efficient portfolio is
diversification between non-correlated (or negatively - correlated) assets classes —
broad categories of investments that share few similarities in their performance.
The basic concepts are the same:
broad diversification, using index funds with low cost, occasional rebalancing
between equities (for growth), and fixed income (for ballast - stability).