I’ve been investing on my own for many years now. When I was younger, I bought index funds and simply held those but I realized I was not exactly where I wanted to be so I decided to go self-directed back in 2010.
STOCKS I OWN
I own 7 stocks and here they are:
- Apple (APPL) – Technology.
- Applied Materials (AMAT) – Supplies equipment for the manufacture of semi-conductors.
- Facebook (FB) – Social media.
- Fortis (FTS) – Canadian utility.
- Microsoft (MSFT) – Technology.
- Tesla (TSLA) – Technology /auto.
- XFN – Canadian bank exchange-traded fund.
I only own a small number of stocks to keep things simple. I feel that if you own more than 10 or 20 stocks, you may as well just own a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund.
WHAT I LOOK FOR
As you can see, this is usually what I look for in stocks:
- Dividends
- Technology
- Canadian banks
I also buy on dips – if there is a large drop in value due to ‘bad news’ or some other economic event I will buy. I also plan on holding all my purchases for at least 10 years.
DIVERSIFICATION
Is this diversified? Probably not so much for the long term. I’m a late bloomer and I realized about 10 years ago that my retirement goals were behind. I made the decision to take on more ‘risk’ and focus on technology.
PERFORMANCE
It’s done not too badly. I’ve been very lucky and caught a bit of the technology wave. I also managed to buy Applied Materials (AMAT) when it was in the dumps and no one wanted it. I’ve held XFN for a number of years and plan on keeping it as it pays a nice monthly dividend.
Fortis was a bit of a safety purchase and hasn’t done as well as the tech stocks but it has been respectable and pays a decent dividend.
I don’t own much Tesla. I bought a share a while ago because I was curios about it.
RETIREMENT?
Sadly, though, the value of my portfolio is no where near where it needs to be and I cannot retire right now or in the foreseeable future. As I mentioned, I was late to the game and made financial mistakes in my 20’s and 30’s.
That’s it for now! Thank you for reading.
What do you have in your portfolio?