Fisher Investments Press: Own the World: Step 1, Choose a Benchmark

Step 1 involves a commonly used investing tool: a benchmark. Fisher Investments believes investing without a benchmark is like trying to circumnavigate the globe sans map. Without one, there’s a good chance your portfolio could get hijacked by pirates. That’s possibly a lesser risk, but you could, and likely will, hit an investment iceberg or two or end up in Madagascar when you were aiming for Lisbon. Fisher Investments feels very few investors utilize benchmarks, and many who do don’t get the full benefit because they ignore their most important function.

What the Heck Is a Benchmark?
First: What exactly is a benchmark? A benchmark is just an index tracking whatever asset you’re investing in. There are real estate indexes tracking real estate prices, bond indexes tracking bond prices, commodity indexes tracking commodity prices—you get the picture.