Individual stocks as a percentage of your portfolio

[dtbach]

The main chunk of my portfolio is in index funds or low cost managed funds (think Wellington and Wellesley) but I do have some stocks I've bought for dividends (low P/E value stocks) and then there is the fun stuff (could I hit a homerun??)

So I decided to see what percentage individual stocks were and it came out to 12.7%. Of that 8.9% are low P/E value stocks like utilities and food companies. So 3.8% of my portfolio are Weeeehhhh stocks

Anyone else attempt excess speculation with a percentage of their portfolio?

 

[leftymd]

Favor the individual equities at this end. Currently about 65.3% of portfolio in individual stocks w/ COP, VZ, MRK, PG, & LVLT among the larger positions.

 

[fh2000]

Mine is about 50% of my total 2.5M retirement fund. 2 stocks are from ESPP. 2 other larger holdings are BRK-B, and GOOG.

I want to diversity but have to wait until I am done with OMY when tax rate is lower. So, this is making me nervous. I have some kind of hedge built in in case of market downturn. I also have 2 modest homes with total $750K equity, so I can sell one if it is really bad.

 

[Dash man]

We keep a 50/50 split between individual stocks and mutual funds. The funds are all on our 401k accounts. The stocks are mostly dividend stocks with our largest holdings being MAIN, AFL, CVX, SBUX, BMY and O. We have 30 individual stocks we try to keep track of.

 

[FIREd]

All of my US equities are held as individual stocks. Most of my international equities are held in mutual funds.

 

[NgineER]

Looking for momentum

I have 12% in total in individual equities, 4% ESPP and 8% in a roth IRA, where I try to find growth and momentum stocks. I don't know how good I am, so I am not contributing any more money to this account. I have a 250% increase in portfolio value since the last bottom, but it was pretty easy to find depressed stocks in 2009.

The rest of our assets are low cost index funds in Vanguard (taxable, roth IRAs and rollover IRAs) and 401(k) in Fidelity.

 

[scrabbler1]

Zero for me. All of my stock holdings are in mutual funds, some index, some not.

 

[frayne]

10% in individuals stocks, the balance in index MFs, the majority of that is in total stock market index fund.

 

[Rustic23]

Zero here.

 

[W2R]

Zero here.

+1

 

[truenorth418]

Less than 20% of my total portfolio are high dividend blue chips. At least they were high dividend when I bought them.

I am slowly selling these off in favor of index funds. This will take a few years so as to control cap gains taxes as best I can.

 

[Mulligan]

About 10% of mine is individual stocks of Intel and Chevron. I must admit I did it more out of bringing a little excitement to checking my accounts than because I think I can beat the market. If the market will make a big drop sometime, I would like to buy one or two more to increase my entertainment pleasure.


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[Animorph]

Currently zero, but sometimes I'll play if I have excess cash.

 

[Cobra9777]

I'm 100% low-cost index ETFs and a couple mutual funds. One exception: I'm still holding some stock options that I was vested in when I retired last year. Those are about 8% of the portfolio. I plan to convert those to ETFs slowly over time to minimize the tax hit. They generate payroll tax in addition to income tax.

 

[walkinwood]

Zero for me. All of my stock holdings are in mutual funds, some index, some not.

+1

In the run up to ER, I did have a small position in my employer's stock.

I gave up on individual stocks during the internet crash. I read Malkiel, Bernstein & others, got AA religion, sucked it up & sold all my stocks and built a balanced mutual fund portfolio. It has served me well.

 

[David1961]

Mine comes up to about 9%.

 

[brewer12345]

About a third down from almost 100%. I diversified heavily as I approached er. Still have one or two positions to work lower.

 

[redduck]

Currently about 15% dividend stocks, wanting to get to 20% of the total portfolio.

 

[kramer]

Zero now and always will be zero. Same goes for any actively managed mutual fund or ETF.

 

[foxfirev5]

Zero. Other than Wellington in a Roth acct, all equities are low cost index funds. Bond funds are split between index and actively managed.

 

[Pleeplus]

Zero here.

Ditto

 

[Lakedog]

About 25%.

 

[braumeister]

A very high percentage a couple of years ago, but I've been lowering the percentage steadily, and now it's a very low percentage. Way easier to monitor this way, and way simpler for DW if I get hit by a beer truck.

 

[aja8888]

10% in MLPs
8% in high dividend stocks

Balance in ETFs, funds, CDs,

 

[CyclingInvestor]

100% since 1993, but I do not consider it particularly speculative - stocks like KO PG JNJ MSFT ADP EMR XOM etc. I do not like owning index funds as they contain too many stocks I do not like.