The Clock Is Ticking

One of the most important issues is allocating your time. This issue is almost never considered in any investment text.

My goal is to build a 20-30 stock portfolio based on only my own research. How should I allocate my time?

I am going to sketch a rough outline right now, but continue to develop this subject as we progress. My point is you cannot build a 20 stock portfolio yourself if you spend a month looking at utility stocks, but you can dedicate one week.

Here is a rough outline of the first 20%:

1 week - utility stocks, this is almost a basic “hurdle rate”, hopefully we can find 20 stocks better than the best utility stock, but if not we can own one

1 week - restaurant stocks, this could be any other “simple” industry, maybe retail or consumer staples

1 week - consumer cyclicals, this is controversial, let’s discuss it in the next post

1 week - gold stocks, until Congress stops spending like a drunken sailor everyone should look at this industry

1 week - big cap tech stocks, many have fallen enough that you should at lest glance at them

1 week - fallen growth stocks, again even the value investor should be looking through the rubble

1 week - your favorite “niche” industry, for me it is gambling

1 week - health care, some might want to spend more

1 week - high yield stocks, not my favorite, but we can look

1 week - consumer non-durables

1 week - industrials

This is roughly 20% of the year. Let’s start here, and think about where to go next.

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Again this is a plan to build a 20-30 stocks portfolio yourself. There are two alternatives if you want to spend more time on each industry. One idea is to use research done by others. We will discuss later how you can do this. Another idea is to hire your own analysts. This can get expensive.

If you want to spend a month looking at an industry, you will need to find other sources of investment ideas.

Get moving, the clock is ticking