As with many people on this board, I'm a big proponent of index investing, but I do have a portion of my portfolio in individual stocks, primarily to add a bit of excitement to investing, and to maybe get lucky on one or two picks. We all need to dream right?
Anyway, this being the stock market discussion section, I thought it might be interesting to share, and hear about others' portfolios... no need to divulge portfolio sizes of course, but would be interested in hearing:
Percentage of portfolio in individual stocks:
Holdings (specific companies):
Mine are:
Percentage of portfolio in individual stocks: 24% (6% is actual stock picking, while 18% is my employer's ESPP)
Holdings (specific companies): Fisker, Magna International, Mercadolibre, Nikola, Nio, Royal Dutch Shell, Seven Bank, Sherritt International, Yucho Bank, + my employer ESPP
Last edited by mighty58 on Fri Jun 18, 2021 1:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I thought about doing a poll on this, but hard to word it to allow for enough options. Perhaps a poll on % in cash would work.
In any case:
Individual stocks are around 30% now (of that perhaps 3% are Japanese via NISA picks). About half of them I've had for 20 years, and 25% I've had for 10-15 years. Many bought after the crashes, and I almost never sell, so sitting on a lot of cap gains. Happy to say 7 are now up over 1,000% (only wish I had bought more shares of those).
Holdings: Lots of tech (Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, Netflix, Alibaba) and some others in a host of other industries (Booking (was Priceline), Berkshire, Waste Management, Morgan Stanley, FedEx, UPS, CVS, Costco, Disney, Live Nation (Ticketmaster)).
I generally buy companies whose products I respect/use/understand.
I don't add much, but during the past year I added a couple semiconductor stocks (no gains so far) and Expedia (up 250% ) and GM since it said it was going electric (up 40% ).
Sometimes I get lucky. A couple unintentional gains have been due to splits that gave me a few shares of Match.com, which are now up to $150 (I paid an adjusted $7) and Vimeo ($44, I paid $1).
Last edited by TJKansai on Fri Jun 18, 2021 6:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
Currently less than 4% in stocks and I'm unlikey to purchase any more.
I'm using Trading212 Pie function which supports fractional shares to make mini-ETFs. You just assign a percentage of the pie to each stock. Dividends are auto reinvested.
The pies are in three areas: Mining Barrick Gold, Lithium Americas Rio Tinto, Valero. Flights/Fossil fuels. BP, Royal Dutch, Wisdom Tree, RR, Delta, EAsy Jet, Southwest, Airbus, Boeing. Mixed results but most are still well below pre-pandemic levels. Plant based food, kellog, beyond meat, tattooed chef.
I plan to just leave this for about five years and might not even rebalance them. It already proved I know nothing about stock picking but these are things that interest me a bit so it keeps me engaged.
(T212 hasn't permitted new accounts since Jan 2021 and doesn't share info on when it plans to change that!)
I’ve been investing since the late 1980’s and started as a stock picker and my most successful investments have been stocks that I’ve owned with dividend reinvestment over decades. I finally came around to index fund investing sometime between the dot-com stock crash and Great Recession but it’s been difficult to build my index funds up to the level of those stock positions even though that is where the bulk of new funds go. I also have the complication that my single largest position is in my employer’s stock, which has built up over time through options exercises and being paid in stock but cannot be sold because I am a company insider.
Japan accounts (over 80% in my employer) with individual stocks which I think have had a roughly market return over my holding periods (CMIC 2309, ALSOK 2331, Secom 9735, Yoshinoya 9861, Matsuya 9887, Asahi 2502, ABC Mart 2670, 7 & i Holdings 2670, Honda 7267, Toyota 7203, NTT 9432, KDDI 9433, Softbank 9984, Morinaga 2201, Yakult 2267, Sapporo 2503, Itoen 2593, McDonalds 2702, Kikkoman 2801, Pickles 2925, Hub 3030, Bic Camera 3048, Shin-Etsu 4063, NRI 4307, Astellas 4530, Daiichi-Sankyo 4568, Otsuka 4578, USS 4732, Rakuten 4755, Shiseido 4911, Mandam 4917, Bridgestone 5108, Komatsu 6301, Sony 6758, Advantest 6857, Kyocera 6971, Yamaha Motors 7272, Daiichi Kossan 7458, Pan Pacific 7532, Canon 7751, Avex 7860, Takara Tomi 7867, Yamaha 7951,Nintendo 7974, JR East 9020, 7 Bank 8410, Mizuho FG 8411, HIS 9603, Itochu 8001, Marubeni 8002, Mitsui Bussan 8031, Sumitomo 8053, Mitsubishi 8058, Resona 8308, Nomura 8604).
US accounts about 40% Vanguard index funds then individual stocks. Most are very long term holdings concentrated in pharma, high-tech and financial services (INTC, MSFT, AMAT, AMGN, CSCO, JPM, LLY, PFE, ABT, ABBV, AXP, AZN, DFS, PEP, SNY, KO, PG, ZTS, MCO, V, UNP, JNJ, BMY, MRK, NVTS, BAC, COST, DIS, NVDA, WM, WMT, YUM, YUMC, NSRGY, CSX, BRKB). Some are within the last 12 or so years and are more speculative but are a much smaller part of the portfolio (AMZN, GOOG, MELI, MFMS, TMFC, EA, PYPL, SQ, ATVI, SHW, FB, MKC) and last year on an opportunistic basis I bought some REITs and ETF’s which seemed cheap (SPG, SKT, FDEM, FNCL, VSS, VWO, NSA, BEP, BAM).
About 2% in individual stocks. About half of that is Berkshire-Hathaway, but I guess that's not really an individual stock in the sense we're talking about.
The other 1% is my "fun" portfolio. I'm not too active with it and don't feel any urge to grow it past 1%; it's mostly popular buzz stocks that sounded like they'd be reasonable long-term holds. I buy them more out of curiosity than anything else, and at 1% their performance doesn't really make a difference to anything other than my personal pride. Which is a good thing, as it turns out. DKNG, TSM, BEAM, CRSP, BABA.
Japan accounts (over 80% in my employer) with individual stocks which I think have had a roughly market return over my holding periods (CMIC 2309, ALSOK 2331, Secom 9735, Yoshinoya 9861, Matsuya 9887, Asahi 2502, ABC Mart 2670, 7 & i Holdings 2670, Honda 7267, Toyota 7203, NTT 9432, KDDI 9433, Softbank 9984, Morinaga 2201, Yakult 2267, Sapporo 2503, Itoen 2593, McDonalds 2702, Kikkoman 2801, Pickles 2925, Hub 3030, Bic Camera 3048, Shin-Etsu 4063, NRI 4307, Astellas 4530, Daiichi-Sankyo 4568, Otsuka 4578, USS 4732, Rakuten 4755, Shiseido 4911, Mandam 4917, Bridgestone 5108, Komatsu 6301, Sony 6758, Advantest 6857, Kyocera 6971, Yamaha Motors 7272, Daiichi Kossan 7458, Pan Pacific 7532, Canon 7751, Avex 7860, Takara Tomi 7867, Yamaha 7951,Nintendo 7974, JR East 9020, 7 Bank 8410, Mizuho FG 8411, HIS 9603, Itochu 8001, Marubeni 8002, Mitsui Bussan 8031, Sumitomo 8053, Mitsubishi 8058, Resona 8308, Nomura 8604).
US accounts about 40% Vanguard index funds then individual stocks. Most are very long term holdings concentrated in pharma, high-tech and financial services (INTC, MSFT, AMAT, AMGN, CSCO, JPM, LLY, PFE, ABT, ABBV, AXP, AZN, DFS, PEP, SNY, KO, PG, ZTS, MCO, V, UNP, JNJ, BMY, MRK, NVTS, BAC, COST, DIS, NVDA, WM, WMT, YUM, YUMC, NSRGY, CSX, BRKB). Some are within the last 12 or so years and are more speculative but are a much smaller part of the portfolio (AMZN, GOOG, MELI, MFMS, TMFC, EA, PYPL, SQ, ATVI, SHW, FB, MKC) and last year on an opportunistic basis I bought some REITs and ETF’s which seemed cheap (SPG, SKT, FDEM, FNCL, VSS, VWO, NSA, BEP, BAM).
Nice Japan list. I may go with a few of those when it comes time to add to my Japan investments.
Nice Japan list. I may go with a few of those when it comes time to add to my Japan investments.
You’ll notice that not all of these were good choices in hindsight
My portfolio "looks" good because I end up selling off my losers after 3-5 years
I didn't see Softbank on yours. I got lucky and bought the dip for my son's Jr NISA. Now with Didi about to go public it has even more potential. My other Japanese home run was Olympus (bought in USA OTC). Got that one just after they had an accounting scandal and got hammered. Toyota (US listing) was funny. I bought some on my son's suggestion (with his money) at $120. Four years later it was down to $70 and I bought more with my money. Since then it has been doing pretty well ($185 now).
My screwup was Nintendo, which was up 100%, then down 10%, then flat for years. I sold at a loss, which was before Pokemon Go and Switch hit the scene. Agghh.
(So far, so good)
) and GM since it said it was going electric (up 40% 
Rio Tinto, Valero.
