How much of your net worth do you have in your largest % stock?
- less than 5%
- 5 - 10%
- 10 - 20%
- 20 - 50%
- More than 50%
0 voters
2 Likes
How much of your net worth do you have in your largest % stock? – Paul
It’s a difficult question to ask and answer.
I bought my first stock at 12 years of age. One share of Xerox. It was 100% of my net worth.
As time went on, I often had a very large percentage in just one or two stocks because that’s all I could afford.
As an old geezer with a larger amount, I can spread the cash very thin. Or not. It’s hard to capture this in a poll.
Rob
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
1 Like
I bought my first stock at 12 years of age. One share of Xerox. It was 100% of my net worth.
Surely you must be confusing net worth with investment capital. Didn’t you own a car or furniture or something?
Denny Schlesinger
I bought my first stock at 12 years of age. One share of Xerox. It was 100% of my net worth.
Surely you must be confusing net worth with investment capital. Didn’t you own a car or furniture or something?
Hi Denny, He probably didn’t at 12 years old!
Hey Denny !
That’s a reasonable question in today’s world. But when I was young, I didn’t own my first car (truck) until I was 22 yrs old and no furniture or household stuff until I was 25 yrs old. I rented an apartment and took a taxi (or thumbed a ride).
Now, only 30% of my net worth is in various company stocks and the rest land and some sheep, a house and some machinery to farm with.
I would say my investments are concentrated into four areas.
Rich (haywool)
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The results so far really surprise me. I expected 5-10 to be the largest category, but right now 30 percent of respondents have no stocks over 5%. I’d love to hear from some of you! Are individual stocks just a small part of your investing and you have mostly funds? What are your returns? What are your goals?
Bear
1 Like
I bought my first stock at 12 years of age. One share of Xerox. It was 100% of my net worth.
Surely you must be confusing net worth with investment capital. Didn’t you own a car or furniture or something?
Denny Schlesinger
At 12? Probably a baseball mitt and a bike.
Andy
I bought my first stock at 12 years of age. One share of Xerox. It was 100% of my net worth.
Surely you must be confusing net worth with investment capital. Didn’t you own a car or furniture or something? – Denny
At 12? 
Rob
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.
Hi Bear
At risk of complete derision on this board, I will confess to having a far too large a number of holdings in my portfolio.
First of all - I wasn’t sure about the definition of your net worth - if you meant investing capital then maybe my top holding breaches the 10% mark (a holding in my former employer), but if you meant to include property etc then it would not get there.
I am guilty of the ~100 size portfolio which I need to trim down. I have got more ruthless in exiting positions since i came across this board but I have an array of positions i need to clear up which are either positions that went wrong, positions still in the process or positions that got hammered and are not very economic to do much with.
What I would say is that I am running both an income/yield portfolio along the lines of B&W as well as a Saul like growth portfolio. As such I feel comfortable running a portfolio of a combination of B&W’s size and Saul’s size.
I would say that part of the portfolio size is an improvement area of mine in judging when to sell and balancing running my winners vs exiting when the story changes.
Ant
4 Likes
Ant:
What I would say is that I am running both an income/yield portfolio along the lines of B&W as well as a Saul like growth portfolio. As such I feel comfortable running a portfolio of a combination of B&W’s size and Saul’s size.
I am guilty of the ~100 size portfolio which I need to trim down. I have got more ruthless in exiting positions since i came across this board but I have an array of positions i need to clear up which are either positions that went wrong, positions still in the process or positions that got hammered and are not very economic to do much with.
I won’t speak for Saul, This is his board and he can say anything he wants without coaching from me.
But please don’t tell me you are running a portfolio along the lines of mine and you feel comfortable doing it. In 14 years so far I have made money. I live off my portfolio because I have no other means of income for those 14 years in retirement. I currently have 8 securities in my portfolio not about 100 I currently have no losers in my portfolio and haven’t had a losing security in over 2 years. I work hard with my portfolio to keep it cranking out growing income for me.The growing income drives the stock prices up creating capital gains. Most of the time I do nothing but monitor my portfolio. This is my full time job and I am very serious about it. I don’t play with my investing and there are no sacred cows in my portfolio. They either produce or I know why they don’t.
If you want to improve your portfolio and make money get rid of the trash and redeploy the cash into your winners. If you were in the hospital emergency room, the first thing they do is stop the bleeding and put a bandage on.
good luck
b&w
12 Likes
Our IRA’s and brokerage account are a bit less than half our net worth because we have a four-plex and two sfd’s. I gave my notice of retirement in February 2000 with retirement date Feb 28 2001. Yep! dot.com crash. In 2003 I bought the 4-plex. No one telling every day the value of the property. Market price of no importance. Four renters, four rent checks regardless. 2009, real estate crash, stock market crumpled: no importance. Four renters, four rent checks.
I did an XIRR on the properties but the calculation has little meaning because it is highly dependent upon the “ending value”. As far as the stock investments, my XIRR did not beat the S&P. I chose to not follow Phoenix 1 because I felt that would lead to taking withdrawals in down market and therefore eating my seed corn. I wanted dividend stocks. But I also wanted growth. So, part here, part there. Of course I always wanted more in growth because the dividends weren’t much. That lead to stretching for yield to get 4% of portfolio in dividends. That lead to a wipeout when energy went into the tank with crude oil price. Turns out I would be significantly better off following P1.
I do have a portion of my IRA in Phoenix 1 and my wife’s IRA is morphing into Phoenix 2 as they add money. Those could be considered as a “fund”. My Phoenix 1 does not mirror the actual as I have never bought into the thesis of several of the companies.
Outside of the Phoenixes, I have 13 stocks: LGIH, CASY, SHOP, SNBY, AMN, TWLO, SSNI, SWKS, MITK, HDP, NOAH, INBK, BABA: position size in that order (big to little), LGIH and CASY 15 times larger than BABA, 7x than INBK.
My goal is to keep on having fun and contributing to the community and not become a burden on children and society. As B&W might say: not lose money. One reason I haven’t matched or exceeded the S&P is that I took more risk and had too much concentration in energy, doing this to “get more” when I already had enough. This stretch included at least three companies recommended by either Phoenix or Income Investors.
KC, who is about to go out into the noontime heat to plant forage trees (isn’t THAT fun?) Note to self: take water.
2 Likes
I missed the age 12 part in the post I responded to.
I must have been 12 or 15 when my mom opened a savings account in my name for $100 at the First National City Bank of New York (now Citibank).
Denny Schlesinger
My biggest single stock is SHOP at ~7% of my retirement portfolio, with 8 others in the 4-6% range: 27 total stocks plus a bit in 2 ETFs (VEU & VSS) for some international exposure. I used to be more concentrated previously, but the ups and downs of having 10% in SKX et al was causing me too much grief - I still work and it could sidetrack my mind enough to potentially ruin my work day. Like Saul, the first half of 2015 I had glorious returns, but the back half of 2015 and into 2016 was not pretty.
I now follow a guideline where I don’t put more than 5% into any one security (though I will let it ride higher) - which I think was recommended in one of Ken Fisher’s books. I get it that concentration has definite upside, but I can only spend maybe 5 hours a week on stocks at most (I have a busy job and 3 school-age kids), even during earnings season, and not necessarily every day, so for now I’m not concentrating further. And yes I get the irony that with fewer stocks less research time is required… but if I need to reduce stock X on Tuesday but don’t notice until Thursday night, well too bad for me.
Anyway, to more directly answer your question, after I factor in the value of my house, 401K, etc, SHOP drops below 5% of my overall net worth, so that’s why I selected the first answer.
Cheers.
3 Likes
I’d love to hear from some of you!
Are individual stocks just a small part of your investing and you have mostly funds?
As far as net worth goes I had to check the under 5% box even tho
I have over 10% of investable funds in Facebook.
Approximate % of major Net Worth Items:
Housing 25%
Business & Real Estate 44%
Individual Stocks 31%
Best investment has been the small business, grew the income about
25% a year the first 15 years of the 41 I’ve had it.
JT
2 Likes
But please don’t tell me you are running a portfolio along the lines of mine and you feel comfortable doing it
Hi B&W - sorry I didn’t mean to infer 1) copying your portfolio (nor Saul’s either) or 2) copying your exact method (again nor Saul’s either).
I simply meant I am holding stocks in a growth oriented portfolio and a high yield portfolio. My “HYP” style is based on the UK fool discussion board method which seeks high yield, highly stable and ultra lower maintenance stocks to provide a high yield and rising income. These are stocks that have been around in the UK for centuries - I don’t expect the US to have the same kind of stability and I don’t necessarily invest in the US for such purposes.
What I like about your approach which is something i tilted towards in the UK but without many opportunities is to find a high yielder that is growing income and dividend payouts very fast - this does take more knowledge and a lot more time - so yes I also hold EVA and HASI which is where we overlap however the vast majority of high yielders I hold are if not buy and forget are certainly buy and hold which takes much lower effort levels.
In the US an example is: CIM. When I bought it, I think it was yielding 12%+ at ~$16. It fell to around $11 at one point but was then yielding 15%. It cut its dividend slightly I think and then raised it so it is now yielding 10%+ and has done for me since i bought it and now the price is up 20% - which I consider incidental to the original double digit yield thesis. Other high yielders I am happy to just trust to do their thing are KKR and BX. I mean am I seriously more competent at managing money than the total force of either of those organisations - the 2 best PE firms in the world? No and I can sleep at night not worrying about watching over their shoulder. Of course I monitor them but I don’t have to scrutinise them (the same would apply to Berkshire Hathaway - not that they are an income play).
You are right it takes a full time job to manage effectively and I am clearly not as effective as you or Saul and you are also right - I need to cut my losers and clean up - which I am now doing as I find myself unemployed which gives me a window of time to get seriously active in my investment management right now before my next work/life phase begins (or maybe I just stick with investing full time if I could get anywhere close to yours and Saul’s results).
Ant
Outside of the Phoenixes, I have 13 stocks: LGIH, CASY, SHOP, SNBY, AMN, TWLO, SSNI, SWKS, MITK, HDP, NOAH, INBK, BABA: position size in that order (big to little), LGIH and CASY 15 times larger than BABA, 7x than INBK.
Nice looking port KC (we have quite a bit of overlap).
You hold NOAH? Interesting - I didn’t think anyone in the US was even aware of it - it’s up high double digits for me. I wouldn’t expect BABA to be bringing up the rear at 1//15th for long though and not because I think LGIH is going to retreat.
Enjoy the foraging. I’m off out to explore old Cartagena where: the old quarter is one of the most beautiful heritage city scapes I have ever seen outside Europe but disappointingly wasn’t where they actually filmed “Romancing the Stone” which had me heart broken for a second when I realised. Not sure if it’s normal in South America (I saw the same in Costa Rica), it seems there are more vultures flying around than pigeons which is pretty weird.
Ant
Not sure if it’s normal in South America (I saw the same in Costa Rica), it seems there are more vultures flying around than pigeons which is pretty weird.
Ant
Zamuros (Venezuelan for American vultures of the condor family) are our free flying sanitation department. City pigeons are filthy animals and a pest, we have way too many in our neighborhood.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Zamuros&num=50&newwi…
Denny Schlesinger
Bear,
For me, it is simply that most of my net worth is in my 401k, and other than company stock, we only have ETFs available. I already have enough company stock - talked about that when I posted my first “portfolio update” last month, but am addressing that as I type this.
I imagine there may be a number of people in same situation.
Doesn’t make it right or wrong, but just that’s how it is.
Kevin
1 Like
Hi Ant:
Hi B&W - sorry I didn’t mean to infer 1) copying your portfolio (nor Saul’s either) or 2) copying your exact method (again nor Saul’s either).
I have absolutely no objection to your copying my portfolio. If I did, I wouldn’t have published it. However I believe you are deceiving yourself into believing you are doing the same as me, when you are not cleaning out the mess that exists in your portfolio. Losses in one’s portfolio create other problems when cleaning house. Accumulating tax loss carry forwards will tempt you to try to take advantage of the losses by selling winning positions which would have the effect of 1) cutting short your winners 2)eliminating the income those winners were producing 3)Eliminating the income growth of those securities and worst of all 4) forcing yourself to seek out other " potential maybe winners" (that might work out or not) to replace the actual winners you had, and using capital to live on instead of growing income.
Other high yielders I am happy to just trust to do their thing are KKR and BX. I mean am I seriously more competent at managing money than the total force of either of those organisations - the 2 best PE firms in the world? No and I can sleep at night not worrying about watching over their shoulder.
Just remember KKR and BX make their money on the fees they charge from people that are willing to pay them and not from the performance of their funds.
b&w
Hi B&W
I have absolutely no objection to your copying my portfolio. If I did, I wouldn’t have published it. However I believe you are deceiving yourself into believing you are doing the same as me, when you are not cleaning out the mess that exists in your portfolio. Losses in one’s portfolio create other problems when cleaning house. Accumulating tax loss carry forwards will tempt you to try to take advantage of the losses by selling winning positions
Nope I don’t consider myself doing the same as you - I was merely trying to attach a signpost to the high yield income investing given that you are better known on this board than “HYP investing” from the UK fool site. I actually don’t look at accumulating tax losses - in Singapore capital gains and dividends are tax free and the US withholding tax is unavoidable for me in either UK or Singapore.
Just remember KKR and BX make their money on the fees they charge from people that are willing to pay them and not from the performance of their funds.
Yes and no - their performance drives their reputation which drives fees and part of their fee structure is performance related.
Ant