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Portfolio Management: Definition, Types, and Strategies

Portfolio management is the art and science of selecting and overseeing a group of investments that meet the long-term financial objectives and risk tolerance of a client, a company, or an institution.

Some individuals do their own investment portfolio management. That requires a basic understanding of the key elements of portfolio building and maintenance that make for success, including asset allocation, diversification, and rebalancing.

Professional licensed portfolio managers work on behalf of clients, while individuals may choose to build and manage their own portfolios. In either case, the portfolio manager's ultimate goal is to maximize the investments' expected return within an appropriate level of risk exposure.

Portfolio management requires the ability to weigh strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats across the full spectrum of investments. The choices involve trade-offs, from debt versus equity to domestic versus international, and growth versus safety.

Portfolio management may be either passive or active.

Passive management is the set-it-and-forget-it long-term strategy. It may involve investing in one or more exchange-traded (ETF) index funds. This is commonly referred to as indexing or index investing. Those who build indexed portfolios may use modern portfolio theory (MPT) to help them optimize the mix.

Active management involves attempting to beat the performance of an index by actively buying and selling individual stocks and other assets. Closed-end funds are generally actively managed. Active managers may use any of a wide range of quantitative or qualitative models to aid in their evaluations of potential investments.

Investors who implement an active management approach use fund managers or brokers to buy and sell stocks in an attempt to outperform a specific index, such as the Standard & Poor's 500 Index or the Russell 1000 Index.

An actively managed investment fund has an individual portfolio manager, co-managers, or a team of managers actively making investment decisions for the fund. The success of an actively managed fund depends on a combination of in-depth research, market forecasting, and the expertise of the portfolio manager or management team.

Portfolio managers engaged in active investing pay close attention to market trends, shifts in the economy, changes to the political landscape, and news that affects companies. This data is used to time the purchase or sale of investments in an effort to take advantage of irregularities. Active managers claim that these processes will boost the potential for returns higher than those achieved by simply mimicking the holdings on a particular index.

Trying to beat the market inevitably involves additional market risk. Indexing eliminates this particular risk, as there is no possibility of human error in terms of stock selection. Index funds are also traded less frequently, which means that they incur lower expense ratios and are more tax-efficient than actively managed funds.

Passive portfolio management, also referred to as index fund management, aims to duplicate the return of a particular market index or benchmark. Managers buy the same stocks that are listed on the index, using the same weighting that they represent in the index.

A passive strategy portfolio can be structured as an exchange-traded fund (ETF), a mutual fund, or a unit investment trust. Index funds are branded as passively managed because each has a portfolio manager whose job is to replicate the index rather than select the assets purchased or sold.

The management fees assessed on passive portfolios or funds are typically far lower than active management strategies.

Another critical element of portfolio management is the concept of discretionary and non-discretionary management. This portfolio management approach dictates what a third-party may be allowed to do relating to your portfolio.

A discretionary or non-discretionary management style only pertains to if you have an independent broker managing your portfolio. If you only want the broker to execute trades that you have explicitly approved, you must opt for a non-discretionary investment account. The broker may advise on strategy and suggest investment moves. However, without your approval, the broker is simply an adviser that must follow your discretion.

On the other hand, some investors would prefer placing all of the decision-making in the hands of their broker or financial manager. In these situations, the financial adviser can buy or sell securities without the approval of the investor. The adviser still has a fiduciary responsibility to act in their client's best interest when managing their portfolio.

The key to effective portfolio management is the long-term mix of assets. Generally, that means stocks, bonds, and cash equivalents such as certificates of deposit. There are others, often referred to as alternative investments, such as real estate, commodities, derivatives, and cryptocurrency.

Asset allocation is based on the understanding that different types of assets do not move in concert, and some are more volatile than others. A mix of assets provides balance and protects against risk.

Investors with a more aggressive profile weight their portfolios toward more volatile investments such as growth stocks. Investors with a conservative profile weight their portfolios toward stabler investments such as bonds and blue-chip stocks.

Rebalancing captures recent gains and opens new opportunities while keeping the portfolio in line with its original risk/return profile.

The only certainty in investing is that it is impossible to consistently predict winners and losers. The prudent approach is to create a basket of investments that provides broad exposure within an asset class.

Diversification involves spreading the risk and reward of individual securities within an asset class, or between asset classes. Because it is difficult to know which subset of an asset class or sector is likely to outperform another, diversification seeks to capture the returns of all of the sectors over time while reducing volatility at any given time.

Real diversification is made across various classes of securities, sectors of the economy, and geographical regions.

Rebalancing is used to return a portfolio to its original target allocation at regular intervals, usually annually. This is done to reinstate the original asset mix when the movements of the markets force it out of kilter.

For example, a portfolio that starts out with a 70% equity and 30% fixed-income allocation could, after an extended market rally, shift to an 80/20 allocation. The investor has made a good profit, but the portfolio now has more risk than the investor can tolerate.

Rebalancing generally involves selling high-priced securities and putting that money to work in lower-priced and out-of-favor securities. The annual exercise of rebalancing allows the investor to capture gains and expand the opportunity for growth in high-potential sectors while keeping the portfolio aligned with the original risk/return profile.

A potentially material aspect of portfolio management relates to how your portfolio is shaped to minimize taxes in the long-term. This pertains to how different retirement accounts are used, how long securities are held on for, and which securities are held.

For example, consider how certain bonds may be tax-exempt. This means that any dividends earned are not subject to taxes. On the other hand, consider how the IRS had different rules relating to short-term or long-term capital gains taxes. For individuals earning less than $41,675 in 2023, their capital gains rate may be $0. On the other hand, a short-term capital gains tax of 15% may apply if your income is above this IRS limit.

Portfolio management encompasses investments across all vehicles such as cash accounts, 401(k)s, IRAs, and other retirement accounts.

Every investor's specific situation is unique. Therefore, while some investors may be risk-averse, others may be inclined to pursue the greatest returns (while also incurring the greatest risk). Very broadly speaking, there are several common portfolio management strategies an investor can consider:

Regardless of the strategy chosen, portfolio management always faces several hurdles that often cannot be eliminated entirely. Even if an investor has a foolproof portfolio management strategy, investment portfolios are subject to market fluctuations and volatility which can be unpredictable. even the best management approach can lead to significant losses.

Though diversification is an important aspect of portfolio management, it can also be challenging to achieve. Finding the right mix of asset classes and investment products to balance risk and return requires a deep understanding of the market and the individual investor's risk tolerance. It may also be expensive to buy a wide range of securities to meet the desired diversification.

To devise the best portfolio management strategy, an investor must first know their risk tolerance, investment horizon, and return expectations. This requires a clear short-term and long-term goal. Because life circumstances can quickly and rapidly change, investors must be mindful of how some strategies limit investment liquidity or flexibility. In addition, the IRS may implement changes to tax legislation that may force changes to your ultimate strategy.

Last, should an investor turn to a portfolio manager to manage their investments, this will incur a management fee. The portfolio manager must often meet specific regulatory reporting requirements, and the manager may not have the same opinions or concerns about the market as you do.

Broadly speaking, there are only two types of portfolio management strategies: passive investing and active investing. Passive management is a set-it-and-forget-it long-term strategy. Often referred to as indexing or index investing, it aims to duplicate the return of a particular market index or benchmark and may involve investing in one or more exchange-traded (ETF) index funds. Active management involves attempting to beat the performance of an index by actively buying and selling individual stocks and other assets. Closed-end funds are generally actively managed.

Asset allocation involves spreading the investor's money among different asset classes so that risks are reduced and opportunities are maximized. Stocks, bonds, and cash are the three most common asset classes, but others include real estate, commodities, currencies, and crypto. Within each of these are sub-classes that play into a portfolios allocation. For instance, how much weight should be given to domestic vs. foreign stocks or bonds? How much to growth stocks vs. value stocks? And so on.

Diversification involves owning assets and asset classes that have been shown over time to move in opposite directions. When one asset class performs poorly, other asset classes usually prosper. This provides a cushion to your portfolio, offsetting losses. Moreover, financial mathematics shows that proper diversification can increase a portfolio's overall expected return while reducing its riskiness.

The objective of portfolio management is to create and maintain a personalized plan for investing over the long term in order to meet an individual's key financial goals. This means selecting a mix of investments that matches the person's responsibilities, objectives, and appetite for risk. Further, it means reevaluating the actual performance of the portfolio over time to make sure it is on track and to revise it as needed.

An investment portfolio manager meets with a client one-on-one to get a detailed picture of the person's current financial situation, long-term goals, and tolerance for risk. From there, the portfolio manager can draw up a proposal for how the client can meet their goals. If the client accepts the plan, the portfolio can be created by buying the selected assets. The client may start out by contributing a lump sum, or add to the portfolio's balance periodically, or both. The portfolio manager takes responsibility for monitoring the assets and making changes to the portfolio as needed, with the approval of the client. Portfolio managers generally charge a fee for their service that is based on the client's assets under management.

Anyone who wants to grow their money has choices to make. You can be your own investment portfolio manager or you can hire a professional to do it for you. You can choose a passive management strategy by putting your money in index funds. Or, you can try to beat the markets by moving your money more frequently from one asset to another.

In any case, you'll want to pay attention to the basics of portfolio management: pick a mix of assets to lower your overall risk, diversify your holdings to maximize your potential returns, and rebalance your portfolio regularly to keep the mix right.

The Best Project Management Software for 2023

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Let's say you're building a house—or even multiple houses. It's a complex process and some tasks must be done in a particular order. You can't install windows if you haven't put up the walls. You probably have dozens of specialists working on the house, and you have to know which days they're available to pour the foundation, lay the tile, and so forth. You also have to schedule them based on not only their availability but also each task happening in the right order. And what if it rains one day? The whole schedule may change. The way to manage task dependency in a complex project like this one is to use project management software.

PCMag has been testing project management apps since 2015. In that time, we've tested (and retested) more than 25 project management tools, and here we tell you about those that scored the highest in our ratings, with a few notes about what makes them different. Below our recommendations is more information on what project management software is and advice on how to shop for the right app for your business or team. If you're managing less complex projects, see our list of the best collaboration software instead.

Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks

With reasonable pricing, an interface that anyone can learn to use, and a good balance of features, GanttPro is one of the best project management apps. We also appreciate that it includes custom fields for tasks, a kanban board view, and a critical path feature, as well as a save history that allows you to do multiple undos.

GanttPro is one of the best project management apps for beginners. That also means it's a great pick for teams, especially small teams, that don't have an expert in project management on hand to run their projects for them. It does not have customizable reports and dashboards that larger teams may need, however.

Before Teamwork became focused on organizations that take on client work, it was already a superbly designed project management platform. If you are new to project planning, you could spend a bit of time using Teamwork and watching some of its excellent video tutorials to learn enough to use it in practice.

If your small business takes on projects for clients, then Teamwork is one of the best project management apps you'll find. It comes with billing and invoicing included, so it's easy to track hours worked on a project and know what to bill.

We picked Zoho Projects as one of the best project management apps because it offers excellent value. It's easy to set up and navigate, offers deep configuration options, and includes the option to track time worked. You can make your own project templates in Zoho Projects, but the app does not come with its own set of templates.

Zoho Projects is a low-cost project management app with an array of helpful features, which makes it an attractive option for small and growing businesses. Its tiered pricing, with attractively low rates, is also targeted at organizations that are on a budget and those that expect to grow quickly.

Celoxis is reasonably easy to use, with a short setup time. Medium to large businesses will like that it includes time tracking, budgeting, and resource management tools.

Celoxis is one of the best project management apps for medium and large organizations. This app provides ample reports and other tools that give decision-makers and business owners value. For example, you can use Celoxis to not only work most efficiently by adjusting project schedules, but also to forecast revenue.

LiquidPlanner is impressive at managing projects, tasks, workloads, and more. It can automatically and dynamically schedule work for your whole team, even as factors change—which may not be everyone's cup of tea. If you're open to what LiquidPlanner offers, this app can project best- and worst-case scenarios for projects and tasks, dish up rich management and insight tools, and give you the tools you need for time-tracking—as long as you opt for a Professional or Ultimate plan.

While LiquidPlanner can be a great project management app for teams of any size, we think it's especially well suited to larger enterprise teams working on complex projects. One reason is because LiquidPlanner's area of specialization is automated scheduling. If a pain point for your organization is scheduling people to take on certain tasks at specific times, then LiquidPlanner can help. This app comes with ample tools for automatically fixing project schedules when tasks slip or when workers are suddenly unavailable.

ProofHub aims for simplicity without skimping on core project management features. It's also competitively priced for small teams. This app is surprisingly easy to use, making it great for teams that don't have dedicated project managers.

ProofHub is a project management app for teams that include proofing stages as part of their workflow. In other words, if your team evaluates or critiques visual materials—whether ad campaigns or mobile app designs—ProofHub has tools that other project management apps lack to help you through those processes. More specifically, it has markup tools you can use to draw on PDFs and image files while you give feedback or otherwise collaborate on them with your team.

While Redmine isn't for everyone, we chose it as one of the best project management apps because it's free and open source, which is a rarity in the project management world.

Redmine is the go-to project management app for anyone who wants a free and open-source option—but you also need to have people on hand that know how to install and maintain it. Redmine is not an off-the-shelf project management app. It's focused on projects that include issue- and bug-tracking.

If you're willing to put in the time to learn what Smartsheet can do and customize it to your needs, it's very powerful. It might become your go-to tool not only for project management but also for other collaborative business.

Smartsheet is the project management app for people who like to increase productivity through automations. That means you're willing to put in the time to set up "if this, then that" type commands that Smartsheet carries out for you automatically. For example, you might have an automation that says, "When someone marks a task as blocked, and the task status is 'in progress' or 'for review,' then alert the person assigned as the manager for that task." Most other project management apps don't have automation options built into them, though sometimes you can create them using third-party tools such as Zapier. One note about Smartsheet: Not all the tiers of service come with time tracking, budgeting, and resource management for free, though you can pay for the companion software that adds them.

TeamGantt has lovely interactive Gantt charts that are incredibly easy to learn to use. The app has exceptional tutorial content to help you learn anything you don't know. We also love a feature that automatically corrects any errors created among dependencies.

TeamGantt is for beginners, because it's so easy and intuitive to use. If you don't know anything about Gantt charts, you will quickly and painlessly learn while using TeamGantt. We like this app best for small teams who may not have a dedicated project manager on hand. TeamGantt doesn't have budgeting or invoicing tools, which is another reason it's better suited to small teams rather than large ones.

Wrike is a powerful tool not only for project management but also for use as collaboration software. Now owned by Citrix, Wrike supports team collaboration, work management, and project management. It continues to grow by adding new work intelligence features that can, for example, predict when a project is at risk of falling behind and call attention to possible causes.

Wrike has a few paid plans targeted to very specific types of teams, namely marketing, creative industries, and professional service teams. Wrike is very good at what it does, so long as you put in some time to pick the right plan and learn its features—expect to work with Wrike's customer support on this process, rather than merely paying for an account and setting up the app on your own. In that sense, Wrike is for larger teams that have the time and resources to dedicate at least one person to work with Wrike during setup.

Buying Guide: The Best Project Management Software for 2023

Project management software is a type of online collaboration tool. All the people who are working on a project log in and see what they're supposed to do and when. These workers also record their progress on those tasks and add relevant details, such as notes about any changes. With the appropriate permission level, people can also learn more about what everyone else is doing, what requirements must be met for them to get it done, and when.

For the project manager, the project management app provides a clear overview of project progress. Are all the tasks on track to be completed on time? If one task is late, how does it affect the projected deadlines of items on the task list? Is someone available to pick up an urgent task if the person assigned to do it is ill? Plus, if the project management app supports tracking finances, the app will also tell the people in charge whether the project is running on budget.

For this roundup of the best PM software, we evaluated and tested more than 25 project management platforms and have included here the products with the highest scores. Inclusion is based on PCMag's independent testing and evaluation. In determining scores, we consider the needs of a variety of business types, including small businesses on a budget and large organizations that need to manage many complex projects, people, and budgets simultaneously. We also look at ease of use, features, and value.

For this category, we stick to traditional project management apps only. These apps are specifically created to manage projects. A project is a set of work with a start date, an end date, and a deliverable. We don't include apps for managing ongoing work, such as answering support emails, or for recurring tasks.

To be included in this roundup, the app must offer Gantt charts, which is a type of timeline view that's commonly used in project management. All the apps included here also have other standard tools in addition to Gantt charts for tracking, organizing, and scheduling project-based work.

While there are many excellent workplace collaboration apps that sometimes are called "project management apps," (such as Trello, Basecamp, and Airtable), we don't include them here. Collaboration or work-management apps are very capable at managing certain kinds of work, but they aren't necessarily designed for juggling the complexities of dozens or hundreds of projects and their schedules simultaneously. Therefore, we don't include them here.

Zoho Projects' Gantt chart view (Credit: Zoho)

Project management apps let you track progress and manage nearly any kind of project, such as the creation of a new product, building a house or website, or launching a marketing campaign. Teams that use project management apps typically track more than one project at a time. The software helps them figure out when to schedule work based on when things need to get done and the human resources available to do them.

The very best project management apps detect problems before they happen through detailed task management. By tracking the progress of work and individual tasks (for example, having completed six hours of a task that's estimated to take a total of eight hours), project management apps can sound an alarm when a deadline is in danger of slipping, but before it actually happens. The most powerful project management apps also offer to automatically reflow the project schedule when tasks do fall off course. They generate reports that give project managers insight into which team members have too much or too little work assigned to them. Some let you track project budgets, too, and log billable hours so that you can send invoices to clients for time worked.

TeamGantt's Gantt chart and workload view (Credit: TeamGantt)

A few of the best project management software systems have a free plan. The only one that made this list that is truly free is Redmine—more on it momentarily. The free plan for most apps is severely limited in some way. For example, you might be allowed to manage only one or two projects at a time or invite only a handful of people to work alongside you. In the paid plan, you might get unlimited projects. Plus, you usually don't get all the best advanced features of the paid plan in the free plan. Still, if you have a small team and need to only manage one or two projects, it might work. Free versions also let you try out the app before deciding whether the paid plans will meet your needs.

You can get a free account from Zoho Projects, Teamwork, Wrike, TeamGantt, ProofHub, plus a few others that did not make this list, such as AceProject. 

Redmine is a 100% free PM tool, but you have to install and maintain it yourself. It's not an off-the-shelf product, but rather an open-source alternative that requires you to have your own tech support. If you're looking for something simple that you can start using right away, Redmine isn't it. For simplicity, you're better off with Zoho Projects, TeamGantt, or AceProject.

Teamwork's project management dashboard (Credit: Teamwork)

If you're new to project management and especially if your organization doesn't have a dedicated project manager, you need a project management app that's easy to use.

TeamGantt and GanttPro are the easiest project management apps to learn and use. They are both designed for beginners and other people who are inexperienced at project management.

Many of the project management apps we've reviewed are easy to use, provide good video tutorials, and work well for beginners, but after testing dozens of them, we believe GanttPro and TeamGantt are best.

If your project team needs to manage and track a couple of projects, but you're less concerned with employee scheduling, collecting time sheets to bill clients, and comparing the progress of multiple projects in development, a low-cost tool such as Zoho Projects (starting at $5 per person per month for Premium) is the best bet. What we especially like about Zoho Projects is that it scales easily if your team ends up growing and needs more features. Zoho, the company, offers a wide range of other business apps that can connect to Zoho Projects to expand what you can do with it.

We also like GanttPro as a low-cost option. It's one of the easiest tools to use and is great for people who have limited or no prior experience with project management.

There's no need to spend more than about $15 per person per month if you aren't going to use the tools that are unique to more expensive software, so stick with something inexpensive.

Large organizations have starkly different needs than small businesses. Organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees and hundreds of projects use project management apps for scheduling, insights into their resources, budget-tracking, revenue projection, and time-tracking for billing purposes, among other reasons.

For a large company, it's important to be able to manage not just individuals, but also teams. If you have 15 hours of work for a junior designer, and it doesn't matter which junior designer does it, you want to be able to see how much work each junior designer has assigned to them and whether you can free up one of them for the task.

For the same reason, all the managers and team leads in your company should be able to see what tasks are high-priority and which projects are in danger of slipping so that they can triage accordingly.

If your organization handles complex projects and has many team members collaborating on projects, we recommend Celoxis or LiquidPlanner.

Teams that are neither small businesses nor enormous organizations may have special needs that they want their project management software to address.

Our top pick in this category is Teamwork, which is specialized to handle client work. If your team primarily completes projects as billable work for clients, then Teamwork is the app we recommend. It includes billing and invoicing, as well as the ability to create intake forms for new projects. Another app called Paymo, which didn't quite score highly enough for this list, also has built-in billing and invoicing tools.

There are other areas of specialization for project management software, of course. If you're looking for a tool that can manage both project and non-project work, we recommend Wrike or Celoxis. (LiquidPlanner is a good pick too, but we think it's best for large groups.) If your team spends a lot of time discussing and iterating visual assets, ProofHub is a great choice. Smartsheet is good for building automation into your project management.

Choosing the right project management software can take time, but it's worthwhile to get it right before rolling the solution out to an entire team. Project management apps typically have a significant setup cost. Even when they are simple to learn to use and let you import project data, it still takes time to fine-tune the app to do what you need it to do and then get everyone on board using it.

When deciding which app to use, it's important to consider what kind of work your team does, how many people are in the organization, and how you want to run your business. There are a lot of excellent options to fit every budget.

With a reliable project management solution in place, people can collaborate with greater ease on project work. Plus, small business owners and team managers can get useful insights into how their teams work, whether projects are on track, and how to guide them back to a successful place when they slip.