A portfolio is a collection of assets that contribute collectively to an overall return. There are many different reasons you could create a portfolio, and you need to define your reason or objective from the very beginning before adding stocks and other securities to your account.

A good way to evaluate a manager is to ask many relevant questions pertaining to your own personal financial situation and your financial goals. Examples of questions to ask are:

In finance, diversification means reducing risk by investing in a variety of assets. If the asset values do not move up and down in perfect synchrony, a diversified portfolio will have less risk than the weighted average risk of its constituent assets, and often less risk than the least risky of its constituents.