I Attribute My Investment Success To...

[TromboneAl]

-

 

[HFWR]

The CANBEER system...

 

[laurence]

Where's the "I married a woman who makes more than me, and now that she stays home with the kid, she still makes as much as me as a consultant!"

We don't have a lot yet, and most (90%) of our wealth is derived from DW's stock options (now safely sold and invested in a diversified portfolio) and the real estate bubble of San Diego.

 

[SteveR]

Save a reasonable amount of your income.
Invest in a variety of different stocks, bonds and cash-like instruments.
Let it ride...

Repeat often.

 

[brewer12345]

Guess I am the only stock-picker to answer so far...

 

[73ss454]

Luck, until I started reading this board.

I feel so much smarter now, I'm actually starting to get it.
A little late at 57 but it's a start.

 

[justin]

bi-monthly DCA into a couple of 401k's, IRA's, and/or taxable accounts. What I'm buying - index funds - total market, extended market, emerging markets, large cap value, total international - just depends on which pot o money it is.

 

[Nords]

Guess I am the only stock-picker to answer so far...

Nah, you're just the only stock-picker to be able to claim investment success with the cojones to do it in their ER portfolio...

 

[Eagle43]

I've been very good at my investment decisions..signed.. John Kerry 

 

[SteveR]

Guess I am the only stock-picker to answer so far...

Not exactly.....

My after tax account is 80% individual stocks bought over the past 15 years...some have been sold...some have been eaten by other companies and some have died along the way. I don't churn the account much at all but I did pick them one by one and the account lives or dies by what I do with them. I don't profess to be good at it at all but it has indeed been a learning experience.

My 401k is all index funds at Vanguard.

My IRAs are a combination of individual stocks, funds, bonds, CDs, and REITs.

My cash accounts are in MM, CDs, index funds, and a few bonds.

I think I even have some spare change under the couch cushions for a rainy day.

 

[Mwsinron]

Its hard enough for us to stay diversified with mutual funds let alone trying to do it by picking individual stocks

 

[maddythebeagle]

401k is all index funds, taxable accounts all individual stocks (mostly drips and very boring).....lot's of singles and not so much trying to hit home runs...

 

[d]

i'm am not sufficiently intelligent to do more than boring, diversified funds, largely indexed.

 

[HFWR]

i'm am not sufficiently intelligent to do more than boring, diversified funds, largely indexed.

There... 

 

[spideyrdpd]

Define success ? I hope to er in 5 yrs
I have the boring 401k plan - about 7 funds 4 of which are based on the index's
I have the ira and roth invested in a mix of stocks
I have damn I was stoopid and bought some company stock
I have a business with my rental and lease option real estate.
Some of my lucky skillfull stock picking skills went into a self directed ira that invested in my real estate busi

 

[terminator]

I don't know how to answer. Which one does buying and holding individual stocks fall under? Then again, more to the point, it is attributable to living below my means and constantly saving.

 

[audreyh1]

Hmmmm.  I am very conservative, but I don't consider myself a buy-and-holder either.  I sell asset classes as they become "overvalued" and buy asset classes as they become "undervalued" - the over/undervaluation being determined by their relative performance to other asset classes.  But I don't consider this to be a buy and hold style since it prompts you to take profits when winners run, and buy when things tank.

Oh - my investing style is definitely boring and super low maintenance.  Deliberately so.  Can ignore the portfolio for up to a year anything if I want.

Now - before retirement I took considerable risk in having company stock as most of my net worth. That would be considered very aggressive. I suppose that's the kind of "investment success" you are really asking about?

Audrey

 

[unclemick]

"Hurry up and do something - just stand there." Bogle's advice worked for 12 yrs - I didn't even rebalance - Vanguard has computers that do that. Nowthat they have sliding asset mix as you age Target Retirement funds - I don't even worry about that 110-my age stuff anymore.

Still trying to beat them with a little side money - haven't done it in 40 yrs - but I still have a few male hormones left and you gotta hang in there.

Hope springs eternal - AND the Norwegian widow gets her dividends.

A little cross thread - going with Missouri 529. Drum roll please - Vanguard age based sliding asset mix, moderate option.

Who'd of thunk it.

heh heh heh heh heh heh heh

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

All of the above.

Made most of my money on a single stock and real estate, then grew it by diversifying, then avoided losing it through market timing, then went into buy and holding indexes.

Up until the "buy and holding indexes", the only thing that happened to me that wasnt practically sheer luck was the "diversifying" part.

 

[dmpi]

I'm really boring. I just buy large cap index funds. I still have some stocks that I have bought in my younger days, but not many. I think I only do 4 or 5 trades a year, which consist of just buying index funds.  My broker is always trying to get me to trade more.

 

[ESRBob]

Al--
I have to answer "both". During the accumulation years, I had my big wins from starting a company and selling it -- it was a completely undiversified strategy where I bet the farm, bet on myself and my partners' ability to make the thing work, and then got lucky enough to find someone who'd pay us today for the future earnings potential of the firm we'd built. Success then was defined as: build up a nest egg big enough to ER on." Non=diversification helped me get there fast.

But now that I'm ER, I have a completely different approach, defining investment success as "have a low-volatility portfolio that delivers 8 or 9% on average and doesn't take much time or emotional energy from me". For this stage, it's all about hanging on to what we have and making it work as the ER engine, giving us those monthly living expenses without emotional angst. Buy-and-hold, widely diversified but boring indexes are now driving our 'success'.

So I guess it depends...

 

[Sheryl]

A little cross thread - going with Missouri 529. Drum roll please - Vanguard age based sliding asset mix, moderate option.

Who'd of thunk it.

heh heh heh heh heh heh  heh

Ya just never know do you? Is that for the "not-really-related" grandson?

 

[Spanky]

But now that I'm ER, I have a completely different approach, defining investment success as "have a low-volatility portfolio that delivers 8 or 9% on average and doesn't take much time or emotional energy from me".

What is low volatility? 8 or 9% return is the high side of market return in the next ten years according to the 'experts'.

 

[ESRBob]

Spanky,
For me, low volatility is a portfolio with a standard deviation below about 8%, which is to say, below the standard deviation of a simple 50-50 SP500/US Treasury portfolio.

That means that 68% of the time, annual returns can be expected to fall between one SD below and one SD above the average return. 95% of the time, returns can be expected to fall between 2 SDs below and 2 SDs above the mean. (In this case, between -7% and 25%) Short term volatility may still bite you, but annually these numbers hold up historically.

For overall expected portfolio return, whether 8-9% is on the high side definitely depends on whether you think the future will be worse than the past. Historically, 8-9% has held up over long periods if you keep the cash and short-term bonds part of the portfolio to a minimum.

 

[mathjak107]

i dont fall into succsess i fail into success