2023 year-to-date
Company Ticker % ch. year-to-date Market value loss ($ billion) Sector
Pfizer (PFE) -44.6% -$128.9 Health Care
Chevron (CVX) -15.9% -$53.7 Energy
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) -12.0% -$51.0 Health Care
NextEra Energy (NEE) -28.5% -$48.9 Utilities
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY) -27.4% -$40.1 Health Care
Estee Lauder (EL) -41.8% -$37.1 Consumer Staples
Exxon Mobil (XOM) -7.6% -$33.5 Energy
Moderna (MRNA) -47.2% -$32.3 Health Care
Comments
Healthcare’s had a tough ride in ‘23. Something I’ve never been interested in from an investing standpoint. Potential for litigation issues alone make them too dicey for me. And I’ve witnessed enough tech high-wire acts and steep plunges in my life not to want to buy a tech company. (As part of a broadly diversified fund I’d have no objection.)
Next thing - you’ll be looking at the ”steep underdog” sports betting opportunities on DKNG!
BTW - The “guru”s on Bloomberg are all over the place this morning advising investors to begin transitioning from cash into equities - now that the S&P’s gained about 30% off its recent lows. Never fails!
That said, I'm still putting $$ to work on QDI stocks, preferred stocks, and my first ever purchase in the BDC space.
I'm hoping HC and Energy outperform in 2024 (You can always hope
I’d guess money is there to be made by folks willing to (1) do the research (2) invest an awful lot of time & effort into trading a basket of those stocks and (3) having the courage of their conviction / being able to add more $$ or sit tight when something falls further. (Who needs it?)
My 10% in individual stocks is split among (1) a mega-dollar international food conglomerate, (2) a large U.S. drug / grocery retailer and (3) a large insurance co. / equity conglomerate (not BRK). The latter replaced a small cap conglomerate which has only continued to rise since I sold a few weeks ago.
I tried exiting all individual stocks for a couple days back in Oct. or Nov. The withdrawal symptoms proved too great …
YTD +2.32%.
27 Dec, '23.
My other energy selection is a single-stock ET. Seems to be a huge manipulation target. But don't buy it for the growth; the dividend is over 9%, and don't forget the current litigation.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/energy-transfer-accused-boxing-louisiana-130000709.html
...To say nothing of the Dakota Pipeline and the "hold" put on any extensions on the calendar in order to get that thing in Louisiana done, completed and finished.
ET YTD +27.71%. I have just bumped into a note somewhere saying ET is "awash" in cash. Dunno how that can be, with all the lawyers' fees, takeovers and mergers. And Management has a penchant for over-paying when it comes to buying-out the competition. Still, it's the BIGGEST outfit in that sector.
https://mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/60941/anybody-care-to-recommend-a-good-natural-resources-etf#latest
I just learned that GRES (the only one I thought promising back than) has shut-down since the thread went up. I continue to hang on to a CEF in the NR area which has done OK for me. Generally, NR seems a “funky” area to invest in with winners and losers depending on what aspect of NR they focus on and whatever particular methodology they employ.
True, @hank.
In January every year, I always pull a slug from the IRA. This year ('24) I've decided I will grab it from PRNEX. I'm thinking about the "opportunity cost." The yield on that pig is generous--- over 4%, but that's not all that I'm looking for. A peek at short and medium and long-range past performance shows PRNEX is a dud, plain and simple. I'm soon going to close it out and redeploy the $$$ into TUHYX and perhaps PRCFX---- once the lovely and fabulous people at TRP actually post the Fund's holdings. I want growth, but want to come by it more conservatively---- owning less in stocks, going forward.
I'm already at 61 stocks, 33 bonds.
Happy New Year, everyone!
14% of the portfolio is in single stocks. That's in taxable.
56.03% is in stock funds.
26.4% in bond funds.
PRWCX holds some bonds; it's a "balanced" fund.
3.57% in "cash" and "other."
So, then: 70.03% in stocks, both singles and funds.
How do I manage them?
Giggle. Badly. I always take a slice out of the IRA in January; I try to figure out how to do that with the least amount of harm. I don't want to cut myself off at the knees in terms of future growth.
I am drawn to the Zurich Axioms. Others here don't like them and find them to be internally self-contradictory. But I think the Axioms make sense. Not all of them apply equally, and I dare say are not INTENDED to fit every situation. The Axioms strike me as a bunch of tools to be employed intuitively, if you know what I mean. It's not charts and statistics--- a.k.a. sadistics. A listing of them all is somewhere in the archives here at MFO.
https://harriman.house/books/the-zurich-axioms-harriman-classics/
Worthy of it’s own thread… the long version
Zurich_axioms.pdf
The short list:
the-zurich-axioms.pdf
I’d hate to be tracking 61 stocks (or 61 anything else). I went from 20 holdings a year ago down to about 12 today. (3 of those are individual stocks.) Always tempted to consolidate even further. I’ve found that with fewer holdings (represented by higher dollar amounts) I trade a lot less. Probably because small / tactical trades don’t “move the needle” much.
Since The summer we moved the opposite direction and stopped buying CDs and T bills. Think the sweet spot are those in intermediate term range, 5-7 years. Small bet on long bonds net over 10% as 10 treasury yield dropped to below10%. Other high yield bonds are doing very well, many have netted double digit total returns. Going forward there are more opportunities in bonds as the FED apparently had reached the pivot point. When and if the rate cut comes, bonds will do well in 2024.
In the meantime we will maintain a healthy % in stocks ( to combat inflation) but wait for “fat pitches” as stocks are not cheap.
TRUTH.
Since retirement in 2018 and only 2-3 funds (they are not at equal %), every trade is at least 30%, and most are at 40-50%. Changes under 10% have minimal effect, and under 5% are meaningless.
Recently pitched a 10% weighted aggressive bond fund & replaced it with an investment grade short term fund. Had I @rforno’s money, a move like that might have sent “ripples” through the markets!
Happy New Year to All, Derf
P.S. @hank
How did you make
out with Draft Kings.
Last I saw up 74% on the year !
I have no desire to own any gaming stock - especially this one. Have commented elsewhere on the extent these buzzards now go to
steal fromlure-in unsuspecting lower income folks and empty their pockets (with assorted bells & whistles under the guise of “gaming”) . They’ve expanded far beyond being a simple way to put a $5 bet on your favorite team. Hell - I now believe this type of predatory practice should be outlawed.It’s your money @Derf - But 10% in a single fund does not strike me as outrageous. Of course it depends on which fund. From the early 70s until mid 90s I was 100% in a good diversified global equity fund from Templeton (later Franklin/Templeton). In the early going when you’re DCA ‘ng in it’s probably an OK approach.
Sometime this summer (I could look up the date) I stopped making small speculative bets on funds or stocks and consolidated everything into the 10/10 approach mentioned earlier in this thread. (Perhaps age had something to do with this.) So the days of speculating on DKNG or anything near as exciting are over. All the stocks I currently own might be termed “consumers staples” or “equity conglomerates” - about as non-exciting as you can get. And I’ve never identified them - nor will I.
It’s never “set in cement”. If you have 10% in a somewhat aggressive fund that’s done well for a while - maybe shift the 10% into a similar but more conservative fund to protect the gains. Conversely, if some area of investments (equities, commodities, bonds) falls sharply, you might want to shift that 10% into a more aggressive holding to take advantage of lower valuations.
No. I don’t believe there’s any “right” number of funds. A lot of ways to skin a cat!