There was a gratifyingly large surge of page views yesterday checking in on my 2012 Portfolio Performance! I’m suitably humbled by the attention – gulp, makes me wonder what challenges 2013 will throw up?! Hopefully the blog’s sparked a few decent ideas & stock picks for you in the last year or so, and you’re pleased with the progress of your own portfolio in 2012. It’s certainly been rewarding for me – most obviously in terms of improving my investment focus & analysis, but also in terms of the constant stream of questions, challenges, feedback, gossip, ideas, etc. from blog readers.
2013 Portfolio
As a result, I now feel somewhat honour-bound to cough up some kind of 2013 Portfolio. I should immediately flag that some of you may find this a bit of a cop-out… But, in my defence, let me say:
- The start of a new year really means little to me, I don’t suddenly discover I have whole new batches of stocks to buy & sell!
- I rarely write about stocks I don’t own. This is pretty deliberate – my intention was never to simply fill up blank space with an idea each day/each week. I think people can really only judge your level of analysis & conviction against whether you actually own a stock – and, of course, by how much stock you own!
- I also don’t write about stocks I track, or discard, very much. First, mostly because they’re far too numerous! Second, I’m not sure I’d always manage a proper (in-depth) write-up about such stock(s). And third, I’ve sometimes tracked stocks every single day for literally years on end before buying – how often do you want to hear about them?!
- As regards discards, I agree there’s perhaps some valuable insight to offer by elucidating the reasons for rejection. But in reality, the vast majority of stocks are fairly unobjectionable – they’re just not cheap or interesting enough for me to buy. I suspect writing about reams of these stocks would quickly become pretty repetitive for readers.
- Of course, then there’s a whole other category of stock duds & discards… Occasionally, they can be highly entertaining to write about, but as regards investing – well, I think we’re all smart enough to just leave ‘em to the numpty-chumps! Overall, I think I’m very specific about what I’m looking for, and what…
