A hundred thousand dirhams is neither a small nor a huge portfolio for a Moroccan retail investor. It is enough capital to diversify without spreading too thin. Here is an indicative allocation — not a personalised recommendation — to get started calmly.
The basics
A robust portfolio rests on three ingredients: diversification (several sectors, several asset types), liquidity (the ability to sell quickly if needed), and simplicity (a portfolio you understand, can monitor, and won't abandon). Anything that doesn't serve those three goals adds risk without a counterpart.
A sample allocation
For 100 000 MAD with a 5–10 year horizon, a balanced split could look like:
- 50 % in Casablanca-listed equities, spread across 6 to 8 names from at least 4 different sectors (banks, telecoms, real estate, consumer goods, energy).
- 30 % in diversified OPCVM funds — ideally one equity fund and one bond fund — to benefit from professional management and the fund's own internal diversification.
- 15 % in a money-market or short-duration bond OPCVM — the "dry reserve" ready to seize an opportunity or top up a project.
- 5 % in cash on the trading account for fees and adjustments.
There is nothing magical about these weights. They simply reflect a classic trade-off between return, risk, and flexibility.
Picking the equities
For the 50 % in individual stocks, the reflex to avoid is to pick only the highly visible "safe names". Real sectoral diversification means looking past the three or four most-mentioned tickers. A bank, a telecom operator, a cement player, an insurer, a consumer-staples name, and a retailer already form a respectable core.
Avoid putting more than 10–12 % of the total portfolio in any single name. That cap protects against an isolated bad news event.
Picking the funds
For the 30 % in OPCVMs, two funds are plenty: a diversified equity fund (which complements your direct exposure beyond your six-to-eight names) and a medium-to-long bond fund (which adds steady income and behaves differently from equities under stress). Favour funds with moderate management fees; over 10 years, a 0.5 % annual fee gap is several thousand dirhams.
Monitoring and rebalancing
Once the portfolio is built, the classic mistake is to spend hours watching it. The opposite — leaving it untouched for 3 years — is not optimal either. A quarterly review is enough: check that the target weights (50/30/15/5) have not drifted too far, and rebalance if any bucket is 5–7 points off target. No micro-adjustments.
In practice
Starting with an allocation like this, executing it with discipline, and rebalancing quarterly already represents 80 % of the work. The rest — tactical calls, opportunities, tax optimisation — comes with time and experience.