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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tekboy who wrote (46172)	9/4/2001 3:39:22 AM
From: Stock Farmer	Respond to of 54805

Hi tekboy - I have no difficulty answering your not-really-prying questions. You asked for my portfolio makeup. The bulk of my portfolio consists of a mix of cash and investment grade or government bonds and convertible preferred shares in bedrock companies and a few ultra-defensive stocks that earn a predictable dividend, all with effective yields greater than 6% versus their purchase price or floor value. This is my criteria. Many many many stocks and equities and bonds fit it, so the exact composition is irrelevant. The precise distribution amongst bonds and cash and stocks is posted somewhere over on the financial collapse thread. I think my instructions to my broker when we set it up were "I want an investment portfolio my Grandfather would call conservative". He thought I was crazy but did a great job with his recommendations. He's good and worth every penny of what I pay him. I kept a small (and sadly smallening) fraction of my original holdings, some for sentimental reasons and some because they fell between the cracks, and some because it is as smart to hedge a bunker to the upside as it is to hedge a growth portfolio to the downside. And one small "roll dem bones" to the moon or bust. Which could very well bust, but sometimes that's what you get when you roll de bones. I also hold 350 shares of Laidlaw. As a kind of diploma in a short course about riding shares into the ground. You asked when did I set it up: I entered this veritable bunker on July 27 2000 (or thereabouts). The date is approximate because my records are all with my tax accountant and he probably won't answer the phone if I call now, or somewhere in the basement. I am disorganized at the moment. It's not as if I need to pull this stuff to hand very often. But it's close within one or two days. I posted my concern about a clif in July and the first of my many "it's overvalued" posts on Aug 1 2000, both to the Cisco thread. Which I know because I just did the investigation necessary to respond to UF's post. Anyway, thanks to having been tech-invested almost entirely (or at least, this is what went rapidly up in price... my mutual funds are pretty stagnant in comparison), well, my bunker is well enough provisioned that I feel comfortable no longer being a productive member of society. As my profile indicates. You asked why do I hang around growth oriented tech stuff? Perhaps you think I should post to the MO thread. But the conversation there is considerably less interesting. And I need to do something because I can assure you that when the value of one's portfolio changes in the fifth digit to the right on a high volatility day... well, there's not a lot of point in checking at any kind of frequency. It is rather like watching grass grow. Which is about what I have to do in the day... I now appreciate by their absence how much being employed offers a variety of time consuming activities. Which to tell you the truth was the worst part about leaving the tech boom boom go go. I miss the action. Because finally, and probably most important, I am greedy and despite what I have I would like to increase my wealth. I think tech stocks are the way to go and I subscribe to the Gorilla game, per se, that it is better to have one's capital in companies that will make something of themselves, and not just through being kibble for others. So I am posting on the boards because it forces me to stay current. To listen carefully to the arguments that others are making and so that I can identify a re-entry position. I may concede points only grudgingly, but I think you will note that I do, and then incorporate this new thinking on a forwards basis. Why tech? Well, the last few titles attached to my name when I was working were things like VP Technology and CTO and so on. Which I know is as meaningless as "Bank Manager". Only stated to indicate my strong bias towards tech and that I have a business background. I have no products to sell or profit to gain from posting. Nobody pays me to post and generally as a matter of principle I think twice and even three times before posting to boards in which I have a significant financial or personal vested interest. Or in which I have contractual, financial or moral obligations of confidence. I post to boards where the contributors have taught me much and whose opinion matters. And either in reply to a direct question (such as yours) and/or to someone whose opinion I respect and who stimulates my thinking. And SI has determined some of what I write is decent, enough for a dozen CP's. But that goes for many of us so it is no special mark. I have about 40 threads bookmarked, which range from this thread to the collapse thread, and many in between. Finally, the reference in my profile about "what I post may not be entirely factual" is a reference to a somewhat fundamental belief of mine about the relativity of perception. Just because I see something doesn't mean what I see is the truth or free from accidental errors. And is a reference to what I feel is an appropriate level of trust to be granted on a open, anonymous bulletin board. I hope this satisfies your curiosity. Any errors are not intentionally disingenuous. John.