What is your favorite growth stock?

[Blue531]

Do you have a favorite growth stock? Or any favorite stock?

 

[Fermion]

I personally like the one that goes up a lot.

 

[Nemo2]

I personally like the one that goes up a lot.

And pays a good dividend.

 

[Sunset]

And was only $1.00 to start

 

[OldShooter]

Will Rogers: " Don't gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don't go up, don't buy it."

More seriously @Blue531, I think you will find that most of us here believe in diversified portfolios. Adequate diversification is essentially impossible if an investor is buying individual stocks. The only feasible approach is to buy broadly diversified mutual funds.

Another guru, William Bernstein offers: “Do you think that by choosing a portfolio of only a few stocks that you hope will score big, you are maximizing your chances of becoming wealthy? Indeed you are, but you are also maximizing the chances of a retirement of cat food cuisine”

That said, there are a number of people here who do have a "play around" fund of maybe 5% of their portfolio. Maybe one of them will stop by with an idea for you.

 

[KCGeezer]

One name....Will Rogers.

 

[MRG]

Most of our assets are in index funds. I used to be a stock picker before retirement 7 years ago. I sold off my tobacco first, still have AEP till next year; other leftovers are APPL, GOOGL, and TSLA I think I'll keep them.

 

[Montecfo]

Too many favorite individual stocks in my diversified portfolio to list.

 

[Golden sunsets]

This year I'm in love with my MSFT holdings. It went nowhere for a very long time but is now a worthy holding. Up about 800% from our cost.

 

[FDC319]

I only have one individual stock, so I guess it is WMT that I bought in the $40s.

 

[OldShooter]

Too many favorite individual stocks in my diversified portfolio to list.

Just out of curiosity, how many stocks do you hold that you consider the portfolio to be diversified?

I have seen arguments for 100 on the principle that no single stock should be more than 1% impact. That assumes that the 100 are diversified across business segment, company size, geographic location, etc. If there is a tilt, presumably all stocks in the tilt will be more correlated than if they were diverse.

 

[Al in Ohio]

Apple for me.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Just out of curiosity, how many stocks do you hold that you consider the portfolio to be diversified?

I have seen arguments for 100 on the principle that no single stock should be more than 1% impact. That assumes that the 100 are diversified across business segment, company size, geographic location, etc. If there is a tilt, presumably all stocks in the tilt will be more correlated than if they were diverse.

I'm obviously not Montecfo, but when it comes to individual stocks for me:
1) I have too many
2) I justify #1 by being concentrated - the top 5 holdings make up 58% of my individual holdings.
3) Some I have to watch (small initial investment). Some are small because I've sold off over time. Some I have because of spin-off's (I sometimes have a bad habit of not selling them/not investing more in them).

With individual holdings, they need care and feeding. Thus #2 allows me to spend most of my care and feeding time (research, review of business, ...) to be limited to a smaller number of securities.

However, my individual holdings represent about 1/3 of my total net worth - the rest is in low cost mutual funds and cash/TIPS/S-Bonds/Other.

One final observation: Looking at my individual holdings, they are worth about 4x my cost, and mostly long term.

Top 5 Holdings:
AAPL, EW, ADI, MSFT, HON

Possible good growth stock: Edwards Life Sciences (EW). Good area (Transcatheter heart valves), has been a well run company (I've owned it since being spin-off by Baxter long ago and have added to my position over the years)

 

[RVplusDog]

I like Zoetis, Generac, SUI, JnJ, Msft, APD, CLF, NUE, and more. At the right prices.

 

[OldShooter]

... At the right prices.

+1

Here is investing legend Ben Graham on that subject: (in "The Intelligent Investor"):

" ... we hope to implant in the reader a tendency to measure or quantify. For 99 issues out of 100 we could say that at some price they are cheap enough to buy and at some other price they would be so dear that they should be sold. The habit of relating what is paid to what is being offered is an invaluable trait in investment. In an article in a women’s magazine many years ago we advised the readers to buy their stocks as they bought their groceries, not as they bought their perfume. The really dreadful losses of the past few years (and on many similar occasions before) were realized in those common-stock issues where the buyer forgot to ask “How much?
​

 

[WhenIsItTime]

I generally subscribe to the few big fund strategy, but also hold ~40 individual stocks. The individual stocks satisfy my trading desires and market engagement although most of my holdings are aged in years not months or days. I track the individual share portfolio against the S&P 500 just to see how I’m doing. Have certainly had + and - years, but after 8 years tracking within cumulative 2% ignoring dividends and net of my ongoing partial cash position.

 

[Montecfo]

Just out of curiosity, how many stocks do you hold that you consider the portfolio to be diversified?

I have seen arguments for 100 on the principle that no single stock should be more than 1% impact. That assumes that the 100 are diversified across business segment, company size, geographic location, etc. If there is a tilt, presumably all stocks in the tilt will be more correlated than if they were diverse.

I have about 80 positions. But while I avoid excessive concentration in any individual stock or industry, I do not seek to be diversified across all industries, geographies and company sizes at all times. I'm not trying to mimic an index, In fact quite the opposite. I have positions greater and less than 1 percent, nothing as high as 5 percent.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

I have about 80 positions. But while I avoid excessive concentration in any individual stock or industry, I do not seek to be diversified across all industries, geographies and company sizes at all times. I'm not trying to mimic an index, In fact quite the opposite. I have positions greater and less than 1 percent, nothing as high as 5 percent.

This. For many years I had a column in my massive daily tracking spreadsheet, of how I compared to the Vanguard Moderate Growth Life Strategy (I think the symbol is VSMGX). My motto was that if I couldn't beat its performance w/a similar beta, I shouldn't be doing it myself. (That is, why try to actively manage if I can't beat a balanced 60/40 passive fund.)

Now, to be honest, I'm not as disciplined as I used to be. I do have a real-time updating google sheet(s) with my portfolio, but I've gotten haphazard in terms of accurately tracking and comparing (in the old days prior to retiring from mega-corp I would be checking/updating/comparing daily).

My decision making is also influenced in part of because I have LARGE accumulated capital gains in taxable accounts on individual positions...close to/around 7 figures. This means for better or worse I have to be careful with realizing gains. "If wishes were fishes", these would (after a long life) become assets passed on to my child with a step up in basis. OTOH, I have to start trimming some positions (like Apple) just because my single stock risk has gotten larger.

In terms of beta, my typical daily swing (both positive and negative) is less than the market, but this is because I am holding rather high levels of cash/TIPS and some somewhat non-correlated assets such as precious metals.

 

[stephenson]

I love the whole ROKU story.

From the name, to the gutsiness of taking on giants across several different industries.

And, the CEO just looks sooooo un-CEO!

Oh, yeah, and $40 to $200 doesn’t hurt, either.

Seriously, though ... ROKU is an interesting company - even those that follow it, don’t seem at times to understand how the businesses interact.

 

[OldShooter]

I have about 80 positions. But while I avoid excessive concentration in any individual stock or industry, I do not seek to be diversified across all industries, geographies and company sizes at all times. I'm not trying to mimic an index, In fact quite the opposite. I have positions greater and less than 1 percent, nothing as high as 5 percent.

Well, you have consciously diversified away most individual issue risk while, apparently, keeping sector risk. Nothing wrong with that. You're in it with your eyes open.

"80 positions" !??! Ack. Not my cup of tea to track that many stocks or to select them from the larger list. But, hey, if its an enjoyable hobby then again there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[stephenson]

Shoot, mention of the medical stock made me remember!

Just goofing around end of last year ... reading through list of medical stocks ... read “Silkroad” ... thought, odd ... remembered historical discussions of the silk road ... tapped on the “SILK” symbol ... read a few minutes ... meh.

Decided to put some money in during the covid slide - was too bored for my own good.

 

[Qs Laptop]

ROKU - Roku
TDOC - Teledoc
AMD - Advanced Micro Devices
NIO - "the Chinese Tesla"

 

[foxfirev5]

Whenever I think about venturing into the speculative side I ask myself one question. What do I know that the other guy doesn't?
Anyway I wouldn't put my DW in a position to deal with a complicated portfolio upon my demise.
However if it's just play money the time tested monkey and a dartboard system is as good as any.

 

[OldShooter]

... What do I know that the other guy doesn't? ...

Exactly.

Do a little speculative arithmetic: BLS estimates that there are 487,800 financial analysts in the US. Arbitrarily assume that 90% of them are not looking for good stocks in the US market. That leaves 50,000 that are. How many stocks can an analyst maintain coverage on? Guess five.

There are about 3,600 stocks to be studied, so that means that on average each stock is studied by about 70 professional analysts. With that many watchers, it seems unlikely that any market inefficiencies could remain undetected for very long.

The alternative view, that prices are random and analysis is futile, doesn't provide comfort for the armchair stock picker either. Here is Ben Graham, revered stock picker and Buffett's teacher, 1976 interview shortly before he died:

" ... I am no longer an advocate of elaborate techniques of security analysis in order to find superior value opportunities. This was a rewarding activity, say, 40 years ago, when our textbook "Graham and Dodd" was first published; but the situation has changed a great deal since then. In the old days any well-trained security analyst could do a good professional job of selecting undervalued issues through detailed studies; but in the light of the enormous amount of research now being carried on, I doubt whether in most cases such extensive efforts will generate sufficiently superior selections to justify their cost. To that very limited extent I'm on the side of the "efficient market" school of thought now generally accepted by the professors."
​

 

[Qs Laptop]

Whenever I think about venturing into the speculative side I ask myself one question. What do I know that the other guy doesn't?

Don't see where this is relevant. You're not competing against anyone.

Pick a company with a disruptive product. Something new and patented.

Examine the balance sheets and income statements of these companies.

Look for a strong balance sheet with a strong current ratio and little or no debt.

Look for companies with good profit margins, including good margins relative to their peers.

Choose companies with a track record of meeting or beating earnings estimates. Ideally, you want companies that actually HAVE earnings, but a strong trend upwards, and imminent positive earnings is acceptable. (We are looking for growth stocks, after all.)

Choose companies whose revenues are growing and whose earnings are growing.

This winnows down a lot of companies. I mean A LOT.

I have other criteria but these are the main ones.