With Bay and Wall streets hovering near all-time highs recently, young investors might be inclined to load up on stocks and forgo more stable fixed-income investments, without realizing how much risk they’re truly taking on.

Portfolios have traditionally been constructed with a 60 per cent weighting to equities and 40 per cent to fixed income. Chris Merrick, founder-owner of Merrick Financial said that is still a good split for newer investors because the fixed income portion will lower the portfolio’s volatility.

However, young investors who are bit more knowledgeable about the market and have a higher risk tolerance can sometimes bump that split to 80 per cent stocks, 20 per cent fixed income, he said.

“The general rule of thumb is the younger you are, the more risk you can take with

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