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Open Thread: What Are You Been Buying/Selling/Pondering
Thanks, all, for your thoughts and insights. Really very helpful to my continuing education, of which I need much more. At the moment, I'm trying to lean in the dividend-growth-area direction with individual stocks, like Mark, but my efforts so far have been half-hearted. i just can't seem to wean myself off of OEFs. it must be because, despite best intentions, i'm a herd follower and think there's safety in numbers.
C22: you have 35% in health and bio. Within that category, do you have a minimum size for individual positions?
--- FSPHX (8.3%) & PRHSX (10%) for the active funds --- FHLC (6.8%) a passive etf (mostly bio and pharma) --- two stock holdings, ABC (5%) (AmerisourceBergen) and DPLO (5%) (Diplomat Pharma), with these two holdings for distribution/production portion of this business sector (not unlike some of the others in the funds above, but that these two stand and will remain standing above many of the others, IMO)
If by minimum size, you refer to what I noted about a 5% position, yes. Of the 35% of total portfolio, the above in ( ) are the percentages for that position.
All of these were started at about 2% holdings and moved forward with continued positive price trends; which may continue with pullbacks.
Always attentive, however.
I'm be around, if this wasn't what you were seeking.........
--- two stock holdings, ABC (5%) (AmerisourceBergen)
Take care, Catch
It's been a while since I owned it (and wish I hadn't sold it), but if I remember correctly, Walgreens has an option to buy something like up to 30% of ABC?
ABC has had a significant run, but it is a very interesting company from the standpoint of you have a significant industry that only has a few players.
----
As for BAC,
You have a giant bank that is trading at less than book value, now several years after the crisis. BAC is trading at 0.7x book, a hair above the 0.5x it was trading at in 2008.
I tend to think that the market therefore doesn't believe the book value. You have a bank that continually gets into legal trouble (although admittedly the fines are effectively a "slap on the wrist" every time) and it becomes whether or not you believe things will change within the bank and, economically, in a broader fashion.
It's not really a thing at this point, but I also tend to think that other, disruptive forces (Lending Club, etc) will eventually emerge and take away/further erod from basic banking. Banking is changing, I mean, look at Capital One's cafes, which combine a basic bank branch with a Starbucks. Or Amex's Bluebird. I mean, look at the banking technology providers, which is effectively a duopoly between FIS and FISV.
linter, my style isn't for everyone but I can tell you that when I started the conversion I held close to 30 mutual funds. I was not impressed by the OEF returns I was getting and I was pretty convinced that a lot of it had to do with my own stupid choices. So, I started by selling my smallest positions and the ones I had the least conviction in (which were probably the same thing). My individual stock selections were not the ones with the highest yields but rather those from the Dividend Champions and Contenders list's published by David Fish here:
Over time I have whittled my OEF's down to 5-6 funds, one's that I may never sell but who knows. In retrospect I look pretty darn smart because I made many of my buys during the 2008-9 downdraft so I'm enjoying great and increasing dividends in addition to lofty CA but truly all I care about is that a company does not cut it's dividend and provides dividend growth as well. I get more than enough to pay my bills along with a few extra pitchers of margarita's a month at present. A few of my picks especially in the energy sector have seen price depreciation, but you know what, their dividends keep rolling in and have increased as well. Frosting on the cake.
When ya'll say you're buying a stock like biotech XNCR or similar, what % amount of your portfolio are you talking about? Whenever I go to the charts and start thinking about the potential gains, I also start thinking about, well, how much do I have to put into it in order for even a fairly astounding rise to make a difference to my total pie? And then I always think, too damn much. And then I think, so what's the point? And around that time, I close the chart and move on. Is this not the right way to think about these things? Are you making bets of a size that'll make a difference or are you making a bunch of tiny bets that, in the aggregate, will hopefully amount to something?
Personally, I don't have anything more than 4-5% of my portfolio in terms of single positions. I do have concentrated bets on certain themes/sectors, but I don't want to be "the railroad fund" or anything of that nature. It becomes a balance to try and make the bets I want to make in a manner that is satisfying but doesn't make the portfolio reliant upon what that sector/theme may do over a week/month/quarter/etc.
I am geared almost entirely towards dividend payers, but I have made a few exceptions, although I will say my exceptions are also things that are pretty much either things that will soon pay a dividend (GILD) or I think will pay a dividend eventually (example: Howard Hughes, HHC) . I also have a wide variety of dividend payers, everything from something that pays around 10% to a few things that pay less than 1% but are growing the dividend and everything in-between.
Really boring markets. Dow's been sitting at 18,000 forever. Oil ceased to fall but hasn't recovered much. Don't do bonds ... but rates still suck. Hmm ... my mutual fund companies probably think I died. No buys or sells in months now. Still snowing in Michigan.
Hope David's commentary tomorrow is good. Need something to break the monotney.
Position size is important; personally I start with $50k then slowly add to it if the fundamental remains excellent, hold them for a long time (more than 5 years). If you pick the right ones such as PANW or PCYC and even a few bad choices, you still can make decent profit.
I guess if one is looking at the CD rate board in the bank/cu lobby, eh?
Nothing in your mix has a smile for the past month; or how about today (3-30)?
And what if we find the theories of some, about flat returns coming our way? Imagine one's best laid plan, even with a nicely balanced 50/50 portfolio returning .2% a month..... now that would be boring and frightning.
And you'll have to wait until Wednesday for David.....
@Catch, My mix has been going nowhere fast as of late. Up a little in the equity and balanced areas. Down a bit in the energy/commodity related stuff. I think the slide in international bonds and curriencies has stopped - for now anyway.
Re: "And you'll have to wait until Wednesday for David....." Ha - I forgot March had 31 days. Thanks & take care.
On the dip put lots into DSENX, as reported in another thread, and debating whether to triple-down on REXX and COG. Put nearterm-needed into more GLRBX.
Being bond centric at this stage in my life - PHYTX. I am working on a strategy that is either 100% cash - 100% junk corporates - 100% junk munis - 100% bank loan/floating rate.
The others all had great advice. I would like to add one twist that I have as a retiree seeking income in a zero rate world. I own my utilities and various other companies that I do business with on a fairly regular basis. Not only am I familiar with them in the Peter Lynch was, but with dividend payers, I own a piece of the broom.
For example, I own both CMS 3.4 and DTE 3.5, but also T 5.7, FTR 5.8. I recently bought some XOM 3.3 but on the dip and whilst the yield is currently enhanced, I think it's safe. Bought some WFM 1.0 but they're new and building a local store.
Oh, and my favorite dividend holding is still NCV 11.8.
BTW, great words in lagniappe and spiffs. I most often just use vig as short for vigorish. It's the juice or rake in gambling but also the:
"In investment banking, "vig" is sometimes used to describe profits from advisory and other activities." from wiki.
I think of it as the spread between wholesale and retail - but/sell - etc.
@Old_Joe I wouldn't buy RPHYX with your money. I paid $19,450 for $20,000 worth of bonds. If they get called next year, I get 20,600 + $1,200 interest = $21,800 on a 19,450 investor or 8.9%. If they go to maturity ,3/15/19, I get $ 20,000 + $4800 = $24,800 on a $19,450 investment or 6.8%. Regards, Ted
@Ted- yes, I saw that and thought that you had done very well with that. It's been some 40 years since I bought actual bonds, and I would again, but the only broker that I have is Schwab, and I wouldn't know how to find an individual issue of that sort.
I mentioned RPHYX because you pretty much are using their approach (or maybe the other way around), which I think is a good one- short term, don't worry about the daily pricing- just hold to maturity and collect the interest. Good plan!
@Old_Joe Schwab has whole research branch for bond and fixed income issues. I haven't played around with it too much, but it is there and has a bunch of different screens.
@jlev- thanks, I'll take a look. There's such a huge amount of stuff on the Schwab website that I haven't looked at all at some of it. I think that I'll horse around a bit and see if I can find Ted's Outerwall issue just for the heck of it.
Comments
C22: you have 35% in health and bio. Within that category, do you have a minimum size for individual positions?
The healthcare holdings are:
--- FSPHX (8.3%) & PRHSX (10%) for the active funds
--- FHLC (6.8%) a passive etf (mostly bio and pharma)
--- two stock holdings, ABC (5%) (AmerisourceBergen) and DPLO (5%) (Diplomat Pharma), with these two holdings for distribution/production portion of this business sector (not unlike some of the others in the funds above, but that these two stand and will remain standing above many of the others, IMO)
If by minimum size, you refer to what I noted about a 5% position, yes.
Of the 35% of total portfolio, the above in ( ) are the percentages for that position.
All of these were started at about 2% holdings and moved forward with continued positive price trends; which may continue with pullbacks.
Always attentive, however.
I'm be around, if this wasn't what you were seeking.........
Take care,
Catch
ABC has had a significant run, but it is a very interesting company from the standpoint of you have a significant industry that only has a few players.
----
As for BAC,
You have a giant bank that is trading at less than book value, now several years after the crisis. BAC is trading at 0.7x book, a hair above the 0.5x it was trading at in 2008.
I tend to think that the market therefore doesn't believe the book value. You have a bank that continually gets into legal trouble (although admittedly the fines are effectively a "slap on the wrist" every time) and it becomes whether or not you believe things will change within the bank and, economically, in a broader fashion.
It's not really a thing at this point, but I also tend to think that other, disruptive forces (Lending Club, etc) will eventually emerge and take away/further erod from basic banking. Banking is changing, I mean, look at Capital One's cafes, which combine a basic bank branch with a Starbucks. Or Amex's Bluebird. I mean, look at the banking technology providers, which is effectively a duopoly between FIS and FISV.
http://dailydividendalert.com/david-fishs-dividend-champions-contenders-and-challengers/
Over time I have whittled my OEF's down to 5-6 funds, one's that I may never sell but who knows. In retrospect I look pretty darn smart because I made many of my buys during the 2008-9 downdraft so I'm enjoying great and increasing dividends in addition to lofty CA but truly all I care about is that a company does not cut it's dividend and provides dividend growth as well. I get more than enough to pay my bills along with a few extra pitchers of margarita's a month at present. A few of my picks especially in the energy sector have seen price depreciation, but you know what, their dividends keep rolling in and have increased as well. Frosting on the cake.
I am geared almost entirely towards dividend payers, but I have made a few exceptions, although I will say my exceptions are also things that are pretty much either things that will soon pay a dividend (GILD) or I think will pay a dividend eventually (example: Howard Hughes, HHC) . I also have a wide variety of dividend payers, everything from something that pays around 10% to a few things that pay less than 1% but are growing the dividend and everything in-between.
Hope David's commentary tomorrow is good. Need something to break the monotney.
You noted:
Really boring markets.
I guess if one is looking at the CD rate board in the bank/cu lobby, eh?
Nothing in your mix has a smile for the past month; or how about today (3-30)?
And what if we find the theories of some, about flat returns coming our way?
Imagine one's best laid plan, even with a nicely balanced 50/50 portfolio returning .2% a month..... now that would be boring and frightning.
And you'll have to wait until Wednesday for David.....
Re: "And you'll have to wait until Wednesday for David....." Ha - I forgot March had 31 days. Thanks & take care.
To answer the rest of your question:
Yes - a rare day as of late. Lots of green & no red. Up .42% - right in line with TRRIX which I consider a proxy or benchmark of sorts.
PRNEX was best performer up 1.35%.
Thanks for asking.
I pared my AAPL back after the stock went back up a bit after the dump, basically sweeping profits. Bought BX with the profits.
The others all had great advice. I would like to add one twist that I have as a retiree seeking income in a zero rate world. I own my utilities and various other companies that I do business with on a fairly regular basis. Not only am I familiar with them in the Peter Lynch was, but with dividend payers, I own a piece of the broom.
For example, I own both CMS 3.4 and DTE 3.5, but also T 5.7, FTR 5.8. I recently bought some XOM 3.3 but on the dip and whilst the yield is currently enhanced, I think it's safe. Bought some WFM 1.0 but they're new and building a local store.
Oh, and my favorite dividend holding is still NCV 11.8.
BTW, great words in lagniappe and spiffs. I most often just use vig as short for vigorish. It's the juice or rake in gambling but also the:
"In investment banking, "vig" is sometimes used to describe profits from advisory and other activities." from wiki.
I think of it as the spread between wholesale and retail - but/sell - etc.
And so it goes,
peace,
rono
Regards,
Ted
Regards,
Ted
I mentioned RPHYX because you pretty much are using their approach (or maybe the other way around), which I think is a good one- short term, don't worry about the daily pricing- just hold to maturity and collect the interest. Good plan!