Poll: Percentage of Smallest Holding in Portfolio?

[Midpack]

Clearly motivated by the recent interesting largest % thread, what's the smallest holding says something too. Most good books I've read say any holding of less than 5% of your total allocation isn't worth owning, or it's for amusement-sentimental reasons-play money. It's effect on the overall, good or bad, is trivial. I wholeheartedly agree, and don't have any holding under 5%.

I have seen detailed portfolio holdings on other forums with several/many holdings below 2%, even below 1%. Often new investors with small $ portfolios, presumably unsure of what to hold, so they have 10, 20 even 30+ holdings!

I will admit having six figures (or more) in one fund seemed like a lot at first when I was much younger, but that hasn't bothered me for many years. Thinking about it in terms of the 5% minimum holding guideline is what broke me of thinking about dollars - in favor of percents.

I assume someone will start the related poll on number of holdings...

 

[redduck]

Great idea, Midpack...

My smallest holding, not counting a few individual stocks, is Vanguard Growth ETF (VUG). Weighs in at .8% It's the last new thing I bought (and probably don't need). I either decide to add to it or will divest.

 

[W2R]

I have 1.05% in Wellington. It's a long story but for those who remember UncleMick's "testosterone accounts" or whatever he called them, this is the female equivalent. Within this 1%, I allow myself to play and invest in whatever I want. The other 99% is invested according to my written financial plan, no messing around.

 

[Rambler]

I hold a number of individual stocks that have spun off a division into a publicly traded company of its own. I still have two $1000 +/- positions from such spin-offs. I'm not particularly fond of them but they aren't losing money so I've just held them for the next time that I sell a bunch of winners and harvest a loss or two to offset a win by a bit. Most of my losses have already been harvested and I don't like creating cap gains that I don't need. I really should check their performance and be more proactive with them, but they're so small that they hardly warrant the time.

 

[NW-Bound]

I have 1.05% in Wellington. It's a long story but for those who remember UncleMick's "testosterone accounts" or whatever he called them, this is the female equivalent. Within this 1%, I allow myself to play and invest in whatever I want. The other 99% is invested according to my written financial plan, no messing around.

Gee, Wellington is not all that volatile for a testosterone account. It's more stable than the S&P even.

You would want something like a triply-leveraged biotech ETF. These things can move 10% in a day.

So, for each $1M in portfolio, one would have $10K in such an ETF, and 10% in a day is $1K. That's something noticeable.

 

[scrabbler1]

Not counting the tiny amount of cash in my local bank's checking account, I have about 3 in each of two small bond funds I consider my second-tier emergency funds.

 

[Zona]

I have .37% invested in VOO (most of the rest of our portfolio is in other funds, like SPY or EAFE). The reason I put some in VOO is because a few years ago I received a small inheritance from an aunt. We don't need that money, so I wanted to invest/set it aside for my young/future nieces and nephews. Having it "separate" just helps me with the mental accounting to keep the initial investment earmarked along with any growth. There's probably a better way to do it, but that's what I came up with at the time. I have maybe one other fund like this that is also <1% of the portfolio.

I'm open to suggestions if there's a better way to track something like this without doing a bunch of math, lol.

 

[LOL!]

I have an inherited IRA from my mom that has a single bond fund that is 0.12% of the total portfolio. The annual RMD is taken out on her birthday and we use it to go out to eat.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

Cash.

 

[GravitySucks]

I keep Cash < 1%

As for less than 5 percent not being useful:
I have a 8 year CD / Bond ladder that every wrung on it is less than 3%. I find each wrung to be quite useful

 

[W2R]

Gee, Wellington is not all that volatile for a testosterone account. It's more stable than the S&P even.

You would want something like a triply-leveraged biotech ETF. These things can move 10% in a day.

So, for each $1M in portfolio, one would have $10K in such an ETF, and 10% in a day is $1K. That's something noticeable.

I know, I think I am settling down in my old age. I used to try things that were more volatile and a little less predictable and change it around almost weekly, but these days I just don't follow the market as closely as I once did.

Actually I have had it in Wellington for the past 4 years, so it has gradually morphed from a testosterone/estrogen? account to just that tiny account "over there" that is different.

I feel like it is stupid to have 1% of anything, since that is too tiny to affect one's overall portfolio to any perceptible degree. But I am reluctant to let go of it and put it back at my usual AA, because Wellington has performed so beautifully these past four years. For me it's like a great race horse leading the rest of my portfolio, which is more like a pack of trusty pack mules. (As you might recall, my portfolio is quite conservative). If/when we see the market crashing downwards again, it will be hard to sell it but I will.

 

[bw5972]

Clearly motivated by the recent interesting largest % thread, what's the smallest holding says something too. Most good books I've read say any holding of less than 5% of your total allocation isn't worth owning, or it's for amusement-sentimental reasons-play money. It's effect on the overall, good or bad, is trivial. I wholeheartedly agree, and don't have any holding under 5%.

I have seen detailed portfolio holdings on other forums with several/many holdings below 2%, even below 1%. Often new investors with small $ portfolios, presumably unsure of what to hold, so they have 10, 20 even 30+ holdings!

I will admit having six figures (or more) in one fund seemed like a lot at first when I was much younger, but that hasn't bothered me for many years. Thinking about it in terms of the 5% minimum holding guideline is what broke me of thinking about dollars - in favor of percents.

I assume someone will start the related poll on number of holdings...

As I have long enjoyed playing personal fund manager, half my equity allocation is in the "MeFund" of 25 to 30 individual stocks. The smallest of these is Facebook at 0.55% representing the limited allocation I was able to get of the IPO (now up 290%).

As far as actual funds, VDADX at 2.5% is smallest.

 

[Fedup]

I don't know the exact percentage but very small. Less than 1% is VWELX. Wellington I believe.

 

[pb4uski]

I dabbled in emerging markets a couple years ago and have about 1% in emerging market bonds and 3% in emerging market stocks.

 

[USGrant1962]

DW's 401K from her hobby job is less than 1% in a target date fund. We also have two small Roth IRAs at just over 1% each that I use for commodity fund tilts in VGENX and VAW.

I've been working on having nothing less than 2%, though I should work on 5%.

My true smallest asset is precious metals - two gold eagles and a handful of silver dollars in the safe. Works out to 0.025% for a zombie apocalypse!

 

[MarieIG]

Too small of percentage to calculate.

 

[RE2Boys]

Smallest investment holding is OneGas at 0.1% of portfolio value. Spin-off of Oneoak pipeline company. Wish I had way more as it has doubled since the spin-off on Feb 2014.

 

[splitwdw]

4% TWTR, my one "play" stock.

 

[UpAnchor]

3.8% in a Fido reits fund.

 

[tsoispf]

I have a "moon shot" holding that comes in under 1%. I keep hearing if I had invested $1,000 in X before it became popular, I'd have over $100,000 today. So far I've lost 4% on it.

 

[ERD50]

Am I missing something? The math in many of the responses here doesn't seem consistent with how we generally think about diversification, does it?

We consider a broad-based index fund (like SPY or VTSMX or BND) to be diversified right? So if our smallest fund is say, 20% of our overall portfolio, then our smallest holding is the smallest holding in that fund, times 0.20 of our holding in the fund. Likely to be minuscule.

But it seems like people are treating an investment in a fund as one big glob. But that's way different from the same % in a single stock.

So I won't calculate my smallest holding, it is tiny.

-ERD50

 

[dallas27]

5% in vwo, which is emerging equity. Technically I hold to boost my overall emerging exposure to a total of 10% because i have much larger index holdings that are partially emerging(veu,vss).

 

[Totoro]

My individual stock portfolio (~30% of total NW) goes in 1% increments up to max 4% per stock, with an aim to have around 10 positions.

If I would stop doing individual the smallest position would be 8%, an emerging markets ETF.

 

[traineeinvestor]

0.025% (one quarter of one tenth of one percent) of total household assets.

I allow myself up to 3-4 small highly speculative investments as a valve against doing stupid things with meaningful amounts of money - at least that's the theory Currently I have only one (an Australian biotech) and, yes, it's gambling.

 

[mrfeh]

I have a very small percentage (<2%) of our portfolio assigned to "speculation".

If I ignore that, our smallest holding is about 7%.