COME BACK IN 2060 AND TELL ME HOW WELL I DID!!!!
We are all "LONG TERM" Investors and I have yet to met a person who would claim otherwise. So let's do ourselves a favour and stop reading and watching financial news that involves market commentary and strategy.
2014 Portfolio
Berkshire Hathaway (25%)
Yahoo (9.4%)
Canada TSX (0.6%)
MSCI EAFE (Europe and Far East Asia) (19.2%)
Emerging Market (4.8%)
Vale (9%)
Lukoil (19.5%)
VT (Vanguard Total World Stock) (1.69%)
Cash (10 %)
Since I am a Canadian with Canadian Investment Account I ended up using the Norbert's Gambit to avoid the 1.5% foreign exchange fee when converting to USD .
May 2015 (update)
The cash is slowly being deployed since most major sectors from technology to big pharma seems to be frothy due to the low price for debt. Bought more Vale stock as it approached $ 5.91 and it has since dropped in value.
2016
Went all in and bought Apple for the first time at $94 a share in Feb 2016.
On April 2016, I have bought my first batch of position in Valeant pharmaceuticals stock for $42.65 CAD. Sold Lukoil when oil prices stabilized above the $50 dollar mark for $52 dollars a share (bought for $46). Bought Twitter for $26 (first batch) and bought again when stock hit $16 dollars share.
2017
Sold off my winners as it approached my fair value estimate. Limit sold Apple Shares for $140 and sold positions in Vale, a Brazilian iron ore company which caused a lot of pain in my portfolio for the past 2 years. To give some context, adjusted buy price per share was $8.61 but the shares cratered to $2.30 during the China hard landing scare in Feb 2016. Although I had a meager profit of 18% (dividends included), I had learned a valuable lesson when it comes especially for commodities companies which is macro risk plays a bigger role in its valuation.
Sold Twitter stock partially for a small gain during the takeover rumors in late 2016 for $20 ($16). Doubled double and tripled down on Valeant has the stock kept going down from $30 (USD) to $8 (USD) becoming one of my biggest holdings/liability. I still consider the company undervalued but fell for the same trap as Vale, which is the macro risk overshadows all other risks. To give the readers, a brief introduction to Valeant before 2016, the company was famous of buying small drug companies selling niche market drugs and then hiking up the price of the drug 10X, 100X the original price. The moral aspects aside this strategy ruptured in 2016 when it became a 20 billion dollar company had started to buy more high profile competitors such as Salix for $14 Billion. There was U.S political scrutiny on its business practices and short seller issuing Enron like manifestos because of its complex 10K annual reports which averaged 400 pages. I had never considered buying Valeant during it's high points when it was using debt to buy off bigger takeover targets but in 2016 when the stock plunged from $200 (USD) a share to $30, I started to buy my first batch of stock in the company. My investment thesis was that this company would go back to becoming a boring Pharmaceutical company which lower growth and higher R&D spending but I failed to see how much corporate reputation damage the firm did because of its prior strategy. For example, it has trouble hiring researchers to ramp up the R&D Department, none of the competitors trust the accounting numbers Valeant its providing as it tried to sell of is assets to reduce debt obligations. I a still holding the stock but it has been quite a ride so far.
2017 Portfolio Composition %
Mosaic (MOS) 2.41%
Dollar General (DG) 2.37%
SOIL ETF 0.55%
Twitter 2.29%
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) 3.35%
Deutsche Bank (DB) 13.15%
Fairfax Africa Holding 7.84%
Potash Corporation 12.13%
Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) 21.14%
Yahoo (yhoo) 10.59%
Berkshire Hathaway (brk.b) 24.18%
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ReplyDeleteAre you a trader or an investor?
ReplyDeleteGood one timmy
There was an interesting study in 2012 looking at historical stock holding period. The average NYSE's Stock holding period by decade:
ReplyDelete1960 (8 years, 4 months), 1970 (5 years, 3 moths), 1980 ( 2 years, two months) 2000 (1year, two months). About 25% of U.S stocks are traded in NYSE, making it a good proxy for the overall U.S/developed stock market. As a individual investor, I would like to exploite this market tendency short short term trading by investing in companies/ sectors that have been out of favour in the broader market. I have kept the core of the 2014 portfolio intact in Berkshire Hathaway and Yahoo (bought more in 2015 market dip). Berkshire I would I like to keep for a long time, while Yahoo trades at 28% discount of it's underlying value. So as a value investor I would have keep it in my portfolio until I reach my assumed valuation.
Valeant I would like to dispose a large position off my portfolio soon when the company starts to stabilize. Any sales of assets would result in buying more fertilizer based stocks to play on the next boom in consumer protein consumption boom. So to answer you question in a roundabout away, I usually buy a stock and place a limit sell order right away. So for example when I bought Apple, I placed a limit sell at $140, even though I knew iPhone 8 buzz would result in higher stock valuations until the release.