Your winners have drifted your mix off target. Enter what you hold in stocks, bonds and cash plus your target percentages, and get the exact dollar trades to rebalance back to plan.
Current holdings ($) and target allocation (%)
Answer first: rebalancing means selling what has grown too big and buying what has shrunk, so your mix returns to its target. This portfolio rebalancing calculator compares your current dollar holdings against your target percentages and tells you the exact dollar amount to buy or sell in each bucket to get back on plan.
Trade = (Total × Target%) − Current value for each asset.
Example: $7,000 stocks / $2,000 bonds / $1,000 cash = $10,000, with a 60/30/10 target. Stocks should be $6,000 → sell $1,000. Bonds should be $3,000 → buy $1,000. Cash is already at $1,000 → no action.
Why bother? Because winners drift your portfolio toward more risk than you signed up for. After a strong stock run, that 60% target can quietly become 75%, leaving you over-exposed right before a downturn. Rebalancing is a disciplined, unemotional rule that forces you to sell high and buy low — trimming what's expensive and topping up what's cheap.
Rebalancing isn't free. In a taxable account, selling winners can trigger capital gains tax, and trading may incur fees or spreads. That's why many investors rebalance with new money first, do it inside tax-sheltered accounts, and avoid over-tuning. This calculator shows the ideal trades; weigh them against the tax and cost they create before clicking sell.
Reality check: It assumes you can trade in any dollar amount and ignores taxes on sales, commissions, bid-ask spreads and minimum lot sizes. Rebalancing in a taxable account can create a tax bill. This is an educational calculator, not financial advice — verify your own numbers and see the U.S. SEC at investor.gov.
Set your mix with the portfolio allocation tool, learn the why in what is asset allocation, and review how to diversify a portfolio.
Last updated 21 June 2026 · Written by Mustafa Bilgic. Educational only — not financial advice.
Multiply your total portfolio value by each asset's target percentage to get its ideal dollar value, then subtract its current value. A positive number means buy that amount; a negative number means sell it.
Common approaches are once or twice a year on a calendar schedule, or whenever an asset drifts more than about 5 percentage points from its target. Directing new contributions to the underweight asset also rebalances gradually with no selling.
Without it, your best-performing assets grow into an outsized share of the portfolio, quietly raising your risk. Rebalancing restores your intended risk level and mechanically forces you to trim what's expensive and add what's cheap.
In a taxable account, selling appreciated assets to rebalance can create capital gains tax. To reduce this, rebalance inside tax-sheltered accounts like an IRA or 401(k), or use new contributions to top up underweight assets.