What is asset location, and how does the optimizer use it?

Asset location is which account holds each part of your mix. A common rule of thumb fills retirement accounts first and worries about what’s inside later; an optimizer can match each holding to a better-fit account even when contributions arrive in the same order. Asset location is one important piece of what the optimizer does (alongside contribution and withdrawal sequencing, multi-year moves, and optimizing toward your chosen objective), not the whole engine.