January, 23, 2008
Diversification is used to reduce risk. This
means diversification among industry sectors so that unexpected adverse economic
events will not blow your portfolio out of the water. Mark Robertson has
an easy to remember "rule" for diversifation. That is sweet 16 plus minus
4. A small portfolio is 12 issues, all in different economic
sectors. A very large portfolio is 20 different issues with no
concentration in any one or 2 or 3 sectors. Diversification is one of the
ways to reduce risk. Risk is measured by the prospects of losing real
value. The concept of volatility of market value to measure risk if
flawed. Risk of individual stocks can be determined in several ways.
Look at the coverage of interest to be paid from borrowing by the coverage of
interest to be paid by pretax income plus interest. Make sure accounts
payable are not growing faster that sales. There should be a comfortable
safety margin of growth of receivables compared to growth of sales.
An additional method is to carefully examine the
quality and risk of each issue. Remember that risk and potential reward
are opposite ends of a teeter totter. There is no such thing as a free
lunch. If you keep all your assets in cash the income return will be low;
probably less that inflation. If you concentrate your investments in assets
which do not grow such as bonds, preferred stocks, money market funds most
annuities and other "safe" situations inflation will eat you alive.
Currently we are in a situation where the Fed is on the horns of a
dilemma. If it reduces the discount rate to increase money in the economy
it will lead to inflation. If it tightens to avoid inflation we will have
low or no growth. In fact what we face is so called stagflation.
This is a combination of inflation and low growth as we had when Jimmy Carter
was president.
Ralph
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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 9:42
AM
Subject: [The Classroom]: RE: Barrons -
"Speaking of Dividends" (efb1c192-fce7-4d4b-954d-89d576c917ba)
From the The Classroom forum at StockCentral.com, Bob
Blanchette writes:
Danny,
I crossed the Mergents top 50 with Aristocrats. I found 7 and I own 3
of them. I also ran take stock against Aristocrats and found 5
(different from the 7) with acceptable quality ratings.
The charts for Mergents top 50 led me to believe that they were heavy into
small caps and financials. For a long term - 10 year- that strategy has
done relatively well. Recently, small caps and financials have taken it
on the chin.
I'm a fan of diversification but not sure the best way to diversify a stock
portfolio. Do you diversify by stock size (market cap, sales)? Do
you diversify by sector and if so, how many? Do you diversify by the
number of stocks disregarding size and sector and if so how many stocks?
I've heard 5 to 20 stocks with no stock being greater than 20% nor less than
3%.
Thoughts and opinions please.
Bob
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Posted by: Bob Blanchette
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