How many different businesses in your portfolio?

[Liberty]

I'm just curious to see how many here follow Buffett/Munger and how many are more like Peter Lynch (sorry if a poll like this has been done recently, but I couldn't find any).

 

If you want to give us more details, I'd also be curious to hear what your philosophy is on diversification, and how many businesses you own stock in. If you also invest in indexes, bonds, etc, please mention those separately.

 

For example, personally I own shares of 6 different businesses and some cash. A few of those are pretty diversified, though (like Berkshire...).

 

thanks!

[Bastida]

Five: Insurance (RLI, MBI) Consumer electronics (AAPL), Oil (ATPG), Mining (ALS), Infrastructure (BAM).

 

Regards,

Bidatzi M. Bastida.

[ericd1]

Equities ~25 positions in 10 or 12 industry baskets - diversified, but not equally weighted.

[ourkid8]

12 equity positions and 3 funds.  My top 6 positions make up 68% of my portfolio...

 

Consumer staples (PM, KFT)

Financials (FFH, TD, USB, WFC)

Healthcare (JNJ)

Infrastructure (CNR)

Natural resources (SD, ATPG and HF)

Telecom (FTR)

 

Mutual Funds: Chou Associates, Chou Asia and Mackenzie Cundil Recovery 'c'

[Partner24]

4 public businesses.

1 private business.

 

 

[alwaysinvert]

6: an ISP, a home-service provider, two banks (one full-service, one internet-based broker), a tobacco company (85% market share in Sweden) and an investment company (of which their biggest holding is the broker, 20% of the portfolio).

 

I am considering just dumping the investment company altogether and investing in one of their other core holdings directly, which is a monopolistic company that owns ski resorts, decently priced at about p/e 15, IMO. They also have a stake in an investment bank, which is a business that I am probably not alone in being weary of here.

 

My biggest holdings are Bahnhof, the ISP, (mkt cap at about 320m SEK) at ~40% of the portfolio and Avanza, the broker, (mkt cap at 6.6b SEK) at ~25%, including the indirect ownership. Both are extremely high-growth.

 

Bahnhof has gained some international notoriety for hosting the Wikileaks servers :)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2hG_BxSVVs

 

I'd say my holdings indicate that I'm more like Fischer/Munger, although not as fond of tech as Fischer.

[valuecfa]

14 Current equity holdings of (no particular order): MBI, AGO, JNJ, MAAL, DELL, MSFT, OSTK, HANS, EVI, TOF, FTR, BAC, WINN, MNKD

 

Equity LEAPS: JNJ, SD, MSFT

[bookie71]

I have probably 40 or so stocks, but 75%  of value is in 4 stocks.  When i finally sell a stock I usually keep a few shares so I can get the annual reports.

[woodstove]

Nine stocks: Berkshire, Fairfax, EGI Financial, Akita Drilling, Imperial Oil, Empire Corp, PFB Corp, Rainmaker, Raydan (mistake).

 

Not very diversified: 3 insurance, 2 oil & gas, and those 5 are almost all of stock holdings in terms of fraction of portfolio.

[PLynchJr]

Non-diversified.  Outside my 401k I hold 8 stocks and 2 mutual funds.  10 positions or so is fairly typical for me.

 

BRK.B PG MSFT WMT JNJ ABT BRK.B XOM BAC

 

FAIRX & FAAFX

[treasurehunt]

Twelve companies altogether.

 

Top four account for 78% of my portfolio.

[beerbaron]

11 Total:

 

RCH.TO

FFH.TO

XDM.TO

AWI.TO

EH.TO

ALS.TO

XIC.TO

BRK

SBSI

T

WINN

 

 

[Uccmal]

29 - The poll is interesting but not very useful.  For example:

 

I have held a few companies is varying amounts for over 3 years Mtl, Rus, FFH, Arx.  During and after the crash I bought a few companies I always wanted as long term holds such as Manulife, GE, PWF.  Others I started with small positions and came to like them more over time as their respective situations have improved notably SSW, fbk, pd, akt.a, wfc.ws, bac.ws.a.  Some i am in a slow process of reducing as they reach high values cfx, cfp.  Then there are a few other get to know positions, and one 100 share position on a O&G company trading at 0.35. 

 

Looking at the sheer number of companies doesn't really tell anyone what goes on.  Except for the most recent purchases I have gotten to know most of these companies over years.

[A_Hamilton]

4 Long Holdings

FRFHF 23.6%

SMBC 42%

FSFG  14.2%

JPM  15%

Cash 5.2%

 

__

Short IWM ~60% of portfolio.

 

[gaf63]

5 at moment,  FFH, SSW, PDS, LVLT, UBSH 

[CONeal]

3 positions SD, AVNR, and NEOP. 

 

 

[omagh]

- 13 public businesses spread across 7 accounts; 5 major positions

- 2 private operating businesses, 3rd being planned

- cash reserve, no leverage

 

-O

[twacowfca]

One.  After a couple of false starts, we went largely to cash because of our heavy concentration in the P/C sector.  We'll wait till after the hurricane season before reassessing opportunities in P&C, especially as rates may harden.

 

The basis for our concern is the potential for loss estimates related to reinsurance in Japan to snowball as there are generally no caps on commercial policies there.

 

We do have an interesting workout that we may be able to share in the not too distant future.   :)

[ubuy2wron]

7 not counting cash and corporate bonds.

[woltac]

13 stock investments: BRK, AXP, WFC, LUK, FRFHF, DIS, ATUSF, JNJ, MKL, MTB, PFE, WPO, WASH.

 

8 mutual funds: LLPFX, LLSCX, 3 Vanguard Funds, 3 Fidelity sector funds that change annually.

 

One 10% interest in an LLC with rights to intellectual property.

[Packer16]

Top 10 represent about 80% of portfolio.  3 major industry groups represent about 90% +

 

Media/Telecom/Entertainment - ACME, SALM, SGA, SURW, LICT, LNET, MGAM, WOLF, FLL

 

Finance/Insurance - FFH, SSW

 

Energy - NRG, Petrobank and PetroBaaken and smaller O&G plays

 

This is the limit of my circle of competance today.  I would like to expand to banks as I think these will recover as RE improves.

 

Packer

[DCG]

A total of about 15 companies between my equities account and IRA.

[merkhet]

Previously 8 positions (some concentration in resources), but I'm now down to 1 position (non-resource) as of a month ago.

[SJUFootball16]

3 individual stocks:  BRK, FRFHF, MKL

 

4 value oriented mutual funds:  IVWIX, Chou Equity Opportunity, SGIIX and FAIRX.  Two of these funds use a more concentrated approach (FAIRX and Chou) while IVWIX and SGIIX generally hold over 100 positions. 

[merkhet]

http://cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/index.php?topic=2753.120

 

Continuation of discussion from the above link.

 

 

"There is just no way, that you can consistently get better results from your 20th to 50th best idea, than from your 1st to 10th best idea.  Not on a regular basis.  And if those 10 ideas are not correlated industries, you will do perfectly fine over the long-term.  In my opinion, better than any other method that can actually be replicated by more than one person!  You don't have to take my word on that...just take it from Buffett and Munger:"

 

Again, check the Validea link. It's not even a debate. 20 stocks perform better than 10 in Graham's system.

 

You're right, it shouldn't be about someone's "word," it should be about evidence.

 

 

Remember, Harry, when you say that "20 stocks perform better than 10" in Graham's system, you're saying that the 20 stocks in the 20 stock model portfolio performed better than the 10 stock model portfolio.  I know it seems obvious that you're saying this, but you have to think about the assumptions you've made:

 

(1) That the ordering of the stocks is based somehow on the ordering of the stocks in between the two portfolios.  For instance, best ideas #1-#10 are in both portfolios whereas best ideas #11-20 are only in the 20 stock portfolio.  This may be true from a quantitative standpoint (there's some arguments against that as well), but you're neglecting any qualitative assessment of the stocks in either portfolio.  In other words, what if the "best" idea was actually in the 20 stock model portfolio but not in the 10 stock model portfolio?

 

(2) I might be making an assumption here, but I think that in using the 10 and 20 stock model portfolios in your discussion, you're assuming that if 10 stocks are good and 20 stocks are better, then your 100+ stocks are even better.  Of course, taken along its logical trajectory, one would assume 1000+ stocks would be the best, though that would fly in the face of common sense because the more stocks in your portfolio past some point, be it 100, 500, 1,000 or 3,000, the more likely you are to be modeling an index.

 

Oddly enough, despite what I just said, I don't disagree with the argument that a portfolio with 100+ names can outperform.  I just think it's much harder to outperform with 100+ stocks than with <10 stocks.