Think of one investor allocating her portfolio as 90 percent NASDAQ stocks and 10 percent cash equivalents and another investor doing the opposite, 90 percent cash equivalents and 10 percent NASDAQ stocks. Now imagine the NASDAQ market declining about 75 percent, as it did in 2000–2002. Clearly, the results of these two portfolios are vastly different regardless of the exact securities selected. Such is the importance of asset allocation.