In a recent report in The Wall Street Journal on "Rebuilding Your Nest Egg," writer Dave Kansas said, "the past couple of years have proven tough for most retirement accounts. Diversification provided some respite, but overall, most portfolios got mauled." By now I think most investors who took on too much risk are painfully aware how much they have lost.

The question now is where do we go from here to rebuild our retirement accounts? Dave Kansas offered an insightful strategy. "Figuring out how to deal with your retirement portfolio depends upon where you are in your life. Time is perhaps the most important element in building or rebuilding a portfolio. In financial planning terms, we call this 'Life Stage Planning.'" The concept is based on the fact that typically the younger an investor is, the more risk they can handle, because they have more time on their side. In other words, they may not need that money for many years. On the other hand, a retired investor may need to start drawing out money next month.

Over the next several weeks we will be discussing investment ideas for people at various stages of life.