Getty Images Taking vacation during the holidays get together with family is a time-honored tradition. But if you spend more time than you'd like to admit following the ups and downs of your favorite stocks, you might get nervous at the prospect of letting your portfolio fly on autopilot for a week or longer. Fortunately, you can protect yourself from some of the problems that could arise while you're taking that break from your investing regimen. Using a combination of the following ideas can help you go on vacation without being constantly worried about your investments. 1. Rebalance Your Portfolio If you're not a short-term trader, then there's little reason for you to take dramatic action to change your investment strategy. But one thing to consider in light of the run-up in stocks during 2013 is rebalancing your portfolio. Many investors are surprised at just how far out of balance an investment portfolio can get even in a short period of time. For instance, with the S&P 500 up almost 30 percent this year including dividends while a long-term bond fund tracking an index of Treasuries is down 13 percent, someone who started the year with a 50/50 split between stocks and bonds now has 60 percent of their money in stocks and only 40 percent in bonds. If that's riskier than you're comfortable with, rebalancing to get yourself back to 50/50 will lock in some of your stock gains and let you take advantage of lower bond prices in the process. 2. Look At Less-Volatile Investments Whether you're looking at stocks, bonds, or other assets, some investments within a class will always be less volatile than others. With stocks, one measure of volatility is known as "beta" and generally measures how much you can expect a given stock to rise or fall in relation to broader market moves. A stock with a beta of 1 generally moves about the same amount as the overall market in percentage terms, while a beta of 2 indicates a stock that's twice as volatile and a beta of 0.5 signals half the volatility of the market.
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