Selling out - Howard Marks

[rnsmth]

(02-04-2022, 11:57 AM)fenders53 Wrote: [quote pid='32224' dateline='1643992205']

It is not a matter of beliefs.  I have plenty of total returns.  It seems odd that so much of the traffic on a Dividend Growth Forum has to do with non-dividend paying growth stocks.

The DGI threads get little traffic the past few years.  Have you noticed there are VERY few DGI forums that get daily traffic?   This place would die without some daily chatter a few threads we have "socialized" provide.  For some of us it's a fun place to check in and we will keep it alive if we can.  The forum owner chooses to keep things inclusive.  There are many threads and sub forums where you can post DGI.  Actually it's not dis-allowed anywhere here, and of course it shouldn't be.
[/quote]

There is a dividend growth thread on SA that gets over 100 posts a day, on good days.  On bad days it still gets over 50.

[fenders53]

That's great. You would think it would be common. SA seems to be the dominant forum left standing. They are very diverse. There are a few YouTube creators with a large DGI following. I watch a few of those channels.

[rayray]

dividends make it easy, less overall thought, but can make an investor lazy and not see the full picture, capital appreciation. what good is a dividend if the original principal (investment) is being slowly decayed away?? when does the investor say enough is enough??

a while back my kplan had mutual funds that paid out dividends/short&long term capital gains which well--made me sit back and do nothing--then they went to ETF's, no dividends...no short&long term capital gain payouts!! the solution?? take profit once or twice a year, sit on the sidelines with those gains in cash within the kplan and re-deploy in the market in opportune times such as we're having now. if the ETF won't pay it out then i'll take it out.

which brings me to stocks that don't pay dividends, you can make your own dividend by taking an "x" amount a year or every quarter.

of course one has to assume the differences between tax deferred and taxable accounts

as far as # of investments to own--some of us and myself included have gotten a little crazy at times

i've been consolidating my investments--it's a slow process

[fenders53]

Ray,

It took me a year to get from 50 tickers to very low 20s. I told myself I will trim a minimum of one per month, and if I was tempted to add a new ticket then two need to go within a week or two. I now only have a couple stocks I would be hesitant to make a five year commitment to.

I can see myself with 25 stocks someday but the entry threshold is higher now.

[rayray]

(02-05-2022, 04:10 PM)fenders53 Wrote: Ray,

It took me a year to get from 50 tickers to very low 20s.  I told myself I will trim a minimum of one per month, and if I was tempted to add a new ticket then two need to go within a week or two.  I now only have a couple stocks I would be hesitant to make a five year commitment to.

I can see myself with 25 stocks someday but the entry threshold is higher now.

limiting oneself to lower # of investments makes one to be more diligent in those choices--at least for myself

i was up to 87 stocks--a crazy amount imho--even tho i had a lot of high quality investments--it was just too much to own so i started to downsize--i'm currently down to 63 individual stocks--now to get into that 30 to 40 range is going to take me a lot longer--maybe a couple of years maybe more due to being in taxable accounts

then i have 2 friends, one has about 120/130 stocks and the other has over 300 stocks! now the 300 plus stock portfolio is a 2mil but idk--way too many imho

i have another buddy worth a few million and he has 30 to 40 stocks and some mutual funds--he said he'd be fine owning 20 to 25 stocks--i have no idea what amount he has in mutual funds vs stocks

[Scooterd]

I have always subscribed to this quote

"Even relatively safe investments entail some probability, however small, of downside risk.
The deleterious effects of such improbable events can best be mitigated through prudent diversification.
The number of securities that should be owned to reduce portfolio risk to an acceptable level is not great;
as few as ten to fifteen different holdings usually suffice. Diversification for its own sake is not sensible.
This is the index fund mentality: if you can’t beat the market, be the market".
- Seth Klarman (Margin of Safety)

For those interested in the publication, I believe I posted an online link a while back under resources.
I highly recommend the book, it was a very good read.

- Scoot