One decides where you’re going. The other steers around what the road throws at you. The best portfolios refuse to choose between them.
Strategic asset allocation is your portfolio’s constitution: the long-term mix of stocks, bonds, and other assets designed around your goals, time horizon, income needs, and risk limits. It changes when your life changes — not when the news does. Tactical allocation operates within that constitution: measured, deliberate adjustments that respond to what markets are actually offering — valuations at extremes, risk building where crowds have piled in, opportunity appearing where they’ve fled.
Every Mountain View portfolio begins with a written strategic allocation built from your plan — the blueprint. Around it, we maintain defined ranges for each asset class: room to tilt toward opportunity and away from stretched risk, never room to transform the portfolio into a bet. Rebalancing runs on discipline, pulling the mix back toward target — which quietly forces the buy-low, trim-high behavior every investor intends and markets constantly discourage. And through frequent dialogue, the strategic core itself evolves exactly as often as it should: when your life changes.