INVESTORS are being urged to make regular checks on their portfolios to ensure they have the right types of financial products to achieve a balance between their willingness to take risks and their desire for increased reward.

Bob Collom, of the Salisbury office of independent financial advisers Thomson's Group, says that just as cars need MOTs, so people need to make regular checks on the make-up and risk profile of their investment portfolios.

"Perhaps the most important rule of investment management is that an investor's risk profile will evolve over time, just as personal factors, such as attitude to risk, will vary as circumstances change," he said.

"It is vital that, once made, investment decisions and asset allocation are reviewed regularly to ensure that they remain suitable."

He said that among the reasons for making a change in risk profile are getting married, starting a family, changing job, deteriorating health, growing older and moving towards retirement.

Mr Collom said that investors who are concerned at the volatility of share prices should consider regular monthly savings to smooth out the highs and lows of the stock market.

He said the philosophy of stock market guru Warren Buffett was that it was "the length of time you were in the market, not the timing of your investment, that determined your results".

Deciding when the stock market was at its peak, or about to bottom out, was one of the perennial hazards of investing in shares.

One way to reduce exposure to the risk of bad timing was to take advantage of regular savings schemes, he said, as the discipline of monthly investment helped smooth out unpredictable or violent swings in equity markets.

Research had shown that an investor who placed £1,200 in the average unit trust in August 2002 would now have £1,244.

But someone who had saved £100 a month over the same 12-month period would have £1,415, making them 14 per cent better off.

Looking back over the past three years, the margin was even bigger at nearly 30 per cent, illustrating the ability of regular savings to generate better returns than lump-sum investments in volatile markets, he added.