This is getting exciting, Subscriber …

Today, I’m going to take the first step towards helping you build the optimum growth portfolio for 2010!

First, though, let’s take a look at some of the insights and ideas readers posted on my blog in response to yesterday’s question of the day:

What portion of your portfolio do you have invested in commodities and natural resources?

Which commodities do you prefer?

And what instruments do you use — commodity ETFs, commodity stocks, futures, other?

With very few exceptions, most of our readers seem to be bullish on commodities for 2010. The primary area of disagreement is how much of a growth portfolio should be allocated to resource investments …

Gary F. is one of the more cautious commodities investors to weigh in: “Approximately 20% of my self-managed portfolio is in commodities,” he writes. “Natural gas and distribution infrastructure ETFs and MLPs are a significant part of these holdings.”

Rob seems to be twice as bullish on commodities as Gary: “I currently have approx. 40% of my net worth in commodities.”

And Walt P. has invested nearly ALL of his money in just one sector of the commodity market — energy. His words: “I spend probably 80% of my available investment capital in oil & gas.”

Could this really be
the optimum growth portfolio
for 2010?

Over the past week or so, we’ve seen how our readers are structuring their portfolios across all the major asset classes. On a scale from one to ten (ten being the most bullish), I’d guess our readers give U.S. stocks a “two,” while ranking foreign stocks — largely in the BRIC nations — a solid “eight.”

They give fixed-income investments about a “four” and currencies rate a “seven.” Precious metals rank a solid “nine” while commodity investments get an “eight.”

Judging just from this response, you might calculate that, according to our readers, the optimum portfolio for 2010 might look something like this:

U.S. Stocks: 5%

Fixed Income: 11%

Currencies: 18%

Commodities: 21%

Foreign Stocks: 21%

Precious Metals: 24%

But please — do NOT rush out and restructure your portfolio this way!

Because by doing this exercise, we also discovered logical and logistic flaws in this reasoning — some of which could prove extremely costly …

For one, our readers freely admit that many of their portfolio-building decisions are based on “gut feel” and not on a consistent methodology for spotting asset classes with the greatest profit potential and least risk.

We also discovered that, as I count it, about half of our readers have invested most or nearly all of their money in only one or two asset classes — notably precious metals, commodities or foreign stocks, for instance.

But that leaves them extremely vulnerable to sharp declines in those areas, even if the declines are temporary.

And yesterday, we uncovered another danger when one reader pointed out that he had invested a small percentage of his money in gold five years ago — but because gold has skyrocketed in price, it now represents a much larger percentage of his portfolio, exposing him to more risk than he bargained for.

After all: How DO you know when to take your profits in one asset class — and then redeploy that money in other areas to maintain a rational allocation of your resources given the current environment?

Or as William put it, “This is the smartest investment advice of anything I’ve heard in 30 years. We should never lose sight of … being too heavy in one area due to past performance or bias.”

Which brings me to today’s question-of-the-day:

If you could start from scratch to build the ultimate growth portfolio for 2010 …

If your goal was to rationally diversify your capital over the most promising asset classes for the year ahead …

Where would you begin? What would you need? How would you proceed?

NOW, we’re getting there: This is really where the rubber meets the road!

Just click this link to jump over to my personal blog and share your thoughts with us. And as always, I’ll add my own thoughts and answer as many questions as I can.

Good luck and God bless!

Martin