I’m 72, retired, and have half followed fool since AOL days. by that I mean I’ve bought fool rec’s that made sense to me when I had money, bought other stocks as well, and probably taken too literally the idea to never sell, basically from benign neglect. Some div stocks on div reinvestment, lots of growth/tech stocks. In late years of work bull market scared me so kept a lot of cash (enough to live for 6 or 7 years if big cataclysm happens) in recent years as security more important than growth… have more than I need for retirement. Not rich, just live modestly, our cars are 15 and 8 years old and run fine, house paid for and a rental house that produces significant income.
Today did thumbnail analysis of financial assets:
Cash, some sitting in Etrade and some in 2% savings… 17%
Automatic managed account at Etrade: 50% stocks, 50% fixed… 17%
Stocks I hold that I manage… 66%
Lockdown diversion during corona has been comparing how I’m doing versus bench marks as stocks have jumped around. I have bought a few stocks along the way that just seemed too cheap, and those mostly on Fool recommendations, but not a lot.
As of today, since Feb 19 top of market
Automatic managed account… down 4.7%
Cash … up some tiny amount
Stocks I manage… down 12.1%
Universe (All of the above)…down 11.3%
Since SPY down 15.3% and QQQ down 8.3%, my stocks fairing in the middle in this short slice of long term.
Reflecting backward over years: I have some stocks found on the fool up as much as 40 times, many up 3 or 4 times. Would have been better off had I followed fool more closely, but the old shoes held for years (J&J, colgate, P&G, T,V, MA, etc) gave me ballast and a sense of security as I focused more on my own business.
Browsing around on the fool this discussion board seems very smart, and I’m slowly moving cash into some of things I’m learning here. Thank you for your insights.