Now that you know what kinds of assets you should have, what specific holdings should you buy and sell first? To untangle some of the snarls, I’ve developed a four-part scoring system that will help you quickly evaluate almost any investment in your portfolio.

Just fill in the blanks, and this handy calculator will add up your score. Then, compare it with the key at the end. The higher the score, the better buying opportunity the investment presents. And if you don’t have any historical records on all the investments you own, you can find most of the answers in any business or reference section of a large library. (Ask for Value Line, Standard & Poor’s or Dow Jones News Service.) You can also try a number of free web sites, such as Yahoo Finance.

If you can’t find accurate figures, feel free to use your “gut feeling” on how each investment has performed for you. This isn’t an exact science, but it should help you upgrade your holdings for more consistent profits.

Part I: The VALUE Test

The best shorthand indicator of an investment’s value is the cash income it’s paying. Find out the current dividend or interest yield, based on prevailing market prices. Then determine the highest and lowest yield for that investment over the past five years (or however long you’ve owned it—if less than five years), and the resulting range.

Part II: The SAFETY Test

Next to value, I prize safety most highly in an investment. In fact, the two are often intertwined. To make a rough assessment of the safety of any investment in your portfolio, find out the biggest percentage price drop that the asset has undergone in the space of 12 months or so over the last five years.

Part III: The GROWTH Test

You want to own at least some investments with capital gains—as well as income—potential. Nobody knows how rapidly prices will go up in the future, but the past often gives a clue. Find out the investment’s biggest price gain (as a percentage) in the space of 12 months or less over the last five years.

Part IV: The MOMENTUM Test

Here's where my contrarian nature comes through. I like to “buy low and sell high.” But how do you know when the an investment is low or high? One simple test is to look at the price today, compared with a year ago. Calculate the percent change (also known as “market momentum”), up or down.