From Saul’s knowledgebase:
You can’t really keep track of more than 20 or so stocks, and that’s an absolute outer limit. I greatly prefer a much smaller number of stocks, as they are easier to keep track of. You need to read all the quarterly reports, and the transcripts of all the quarterly conference calls, which gives you a busy earning season. They often say a lot more on the conference calls than in the earnings press release. Reading the transcripts works much better than listening to recordings as it takes a quarter of the time, and you can skip the forward-looking statements messages, etc. Look at investor presentations too. And get a news-feed from your broker on each of your stocks.
Actually Buffet is more hard-core than Saul, or at least wants to be: https://youtu.be/55IFdwZ_oQk
In this video, Buffett makes a compelling case against diversification, against holding 30 or more stocks. Actually, Buffett says:
3 wonderful businesses is more than you need in this life to do very well.
And in this video, he says one’s portfolio should be no larger than 6 companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbjPiYE-F4Y
If you really know businesses, you shouldn’t own more than 6 of them. Very few people have gotten rich on their seventh best idea, but a lot of people have gotten rich on their best idea.
I know portfolio management is OT for this board, but I did want to provide some backing to Saul’s knowledgebase entry on the number of companies he keeps in his portfolio and why.