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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nikkei86 who wrote (41198)	1/26/2011 8:37:25 PM
From: Steve Felix	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78601

Kind of easy to use Apple now. "Well, call 10 stocks what you want, but I think it's the only way to see some serious returns." Or lose your A$$. Plenty of the next big things have blown up. They are never used in positive examples though. Why not show us your 2011 ten baggers?

To: nikkei86 who wrote (41198)	1/26/2011 9:30:31 PM
From: Paul Senior	Respond to of 78601

I scarcely know where to begin in responding to your ideas. 1. We're a Ben Graham thread (maybe/sometimes). So for me as I review Dr. Graham's last writings, he was about removing complexity. That is, he kind of disavowed the complexity of his Graham&Dodd opus, and said it looked to him like using a couple of standard measures -- price/book, p/e, or maybe others -- on a reasonable number of stocks would give results about as good as anything else. (Like maybe 25-30-- I can't remember. Not 200 though. I don't believe it's even possible for anyone in the media to ever suggest such a thing. 200 stocks for the average person? The person suggesting that would be laughed off the stage.) 2. I stand by my previous statements -- if I can remember them - lol -- that there's no real academic evidence that I've seen that confirms the more you know about the particular stocks you put and keep in your portfolio, the better your portfolio's performance will be. 3. You don't have access to my portfolios or their history, so I can only say that you seem to presume that because when you see public managers with their large number of stocks and they don't beat the market by much if at all, you follow the usual conclusion that academics espouse, that my portfolio too must tend to the mean, and that I would not beat the market by much if at all. Do you still assume that same conclusion though even after I've implied my portfolio isn't kept equally weighted (e.g. lots of oil stocks now)? I have posted my performance over time in a previous post. 4. When I invest by time, sure, not so great $$$ gains with small positions. A 4.6x bagger on the few shares of Apple stock I still have from an 6/'06. That performance is duplicated and bettered by several other small positions of stocks in the portfolio as well. Which add up. Nibbles add up to a full meal. 5. I post stocks here that I am buying that fit into my model for value stocks. I don't buy them because I have a strong belief in them. I buy them because they fit. If I had to have a strong belief, I'd never have bought some of the stocks that have treated me well. 6. Sometimes a belief does get in my way or in my sights. I use position size to manage the risk of that. I accept what you seem to be saying you want to do -- keep your portfolio down to 10 stocks with a view that maybe you want to do very, very well with those stocks (i.e. get big gains). How about though, you give some encouragement to that view with some suggested buys for that portfolio of ten? Are you suggesting MGM is one of the stocks? Or that you are swing trading one or a few ETFs for a market timing thing? These ideas to me don't seem like they will do the job. (Speculating more than "investing"?) This all jmo, of course. I have my way, my strong opinions. Doesn't mean I'm right. (And I'm often not.) Room in investing for many different ways. So people here keep telling me. Hrumph, hrumph -- I still say my way is best--wrong though I have been so many, many times. :>)

To: nikkei86 who wrote (41198)	1/26/2011 10:37:41 PM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	3 Recommendations Respond to of 78601

Bruwin, is that you? :P .... Seriously, if the ten expected-10-bagger stock portfolio works for you, great. Please share your ten expected-10-baggers with us if you're so kind. If you don't want to share, OK, please go ahead, invest and become a billionaire fast. :) I know where you are coming from and we have had these discussions before. Ten stock portfolio does not work for me. If it works for you, Bruwin and Buffett (actually, Buffett has had over 10 stocks for ages now, so maybe he doesn't qualify :P), more power to you guys. Buy us a dinner in some posh restaurant once you're billionaires. You can gloat as much as you want. :) But so far you are just trying to sell your philosophy to a bunch of investors as if they are some greenhorn newbs. You know people here have tried various approaches, have read through Buffett and Munger and Graham and tons of other stuff and know their ideas as much as you do. The fact that some of them decided to follow more Grahamesque approach or more diversified GARP approach does not make them schmucks or poor investors as you seem to imply. Maybe it's time for YOU to reread Buffett's article "Superinvestors of Graham-and-Doddsville" and learn some humility from it. One of the greatest investors of all time knows how to appreciate different value investing approaches. It's only his "disciples" that try to proclaim the way of Buffett - which they don't usually even know very well - as the "only" approach that works.

To: nikkei86 who wrote (41198)	1/26/2011 11:20:41 PM
From: Grantcw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78601

Hello Nikkei86, Have you been using this 10-stock strategy for a few years? To be honest, I've considered it, but I'm not going to go for it. Right now, My top 10 positions are generally over 60% of my portfolio, with another 10-20 positions comprising the other 40% and I still am concerned enough about the market these days that I've got a bunch of covered calls covering me for 10-20% premiums in case we correct. If I were to go to 10 positions someday, it would be only large, value companies like CSCO, MSFT, GLW, TOT, E, etc... I've thought about it to try to get solid returns, but I've backed off mostly due to the fact that I felt I couldn't get exposed to enough sectors that way. And I had more ideas than 10 that I wanted to put my money into. And in the end, having only 10 positions spooks me. Thanks, Grant