WEALTHTRACK Streamlined Portfolios & Financial Plans That Work for Christine Benz
Feb 6, 2026
Christine Benz, Morningstar’s director of personal finance and retirement planning, offers 'good enough' approaches to portfolios and plans. She contrasts optimizers and satisficers. She explains why benign neglect often beats tinkering. She recommends simple building blocks like low-cost index funds, target-date options, tax diversification with Roths and taxable accounts, and practical policy statements.
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Avoid Constant Portfolio Tinkering
- Do adopt benign neglect for most portfolios and avoid constant tinkering.
- Benz points out frozen portfolios often outperform ones that are actively changed.
Make Index Funds Your Core
- Use low-cost broad market index funds and ETFs as core building blocks for simplicity and performance.
- Benz recommends all-in funds like target-date or multi-asset funds for smaller or spare accounts.
Use Target-Date Funds For Hands-Off Saving
- Use target date funds for hands-off investing, especially in 401(k) plans where they're often the default.
- Benz calls them among the best innovations because they set and adjust asset allocation automatically.
