I started this portfolio in my first year of college at the age of 19. When I first started I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I was determined to become an investor and learn. Since then, nearly eight years later I still have this same brokerage account and I have made many mistakes — such as bad stock purchases, selling stocks at bad times, not understanding the tax consequences of selling at a gain, not having a plan or goal, buying high/ selling low, following market trends, listening to analyst, not doing the proper research, having a unorganized portfolio, and many more.
Along with all of the mistakes also came experience, knowledge, financial gain, and much learning. I can honestly say the best way to learn is by just doing something and taking action. So many people wait to start investing because they want to learn more about investing or wait for the perfect market conditions before they begin investing. From my personal experience there is no perfect time to jump into the market. It’s nearly impossible to predict what time markets will be one week from now, let alone one year.
Recently, I haven’t been investing as much money in individual stocks. I still use any dividend income I receive from this brokerage account to make individual purchases but not nearly as much of my earned income, although this could change. I found with the recent market conditions that purchasing individual stocks is currently risky as individual share prices fluctuate so much, most times because of emotion instead of fundamentals making it extremely difficult to predict prices. Even when doing the proper research and due diligence on a stock it seems effortless as share prices seem to be more based on the news, media, and investor emotion than a stocks actual financials, earnings, and fundamentals.
My Investing Strategy
For the purpose of deferring taxes and avoiding emotional market swings, my investing strategy is to buy/hold and reinvest any dividend income. When I make a stock purchase I do so with the intent of holding that stock for a minimum of ten years. I only by companies that I’m familiar with, have a good history, and are well established.
Individual Stocks I Own
Stocks I currently own:
- Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI)
- Bank of America Corp. (BAC)
- Citigroup Inc (C)
- Colgate Palmolive Company (CC)
- Enterprise Products Partners
- Ford Motor Co (F)
- General Electric Company (GE)
- Huntington Bancshares Inc (HBAN)
- Hilton Wordwide Holdings Inc (HLT)
- JC Penny Co Inc (JCP) – I know what your thinking… I have my reasons for owning this one.
- Southwest Airlines Co (LUV) – My all time favorite company!
- Marathon Oil Corp (MRO)
- New York Community Bancorp Inc (NYCB)
- Oracle Corporation (ORCL)
- Proctor & Gamble Co (PG)
- At&t Inc (T)
- Waste Management Inc Del (WM)
- Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT)