How diversified are you?

Same here on FCSS for me, an ETF that has been consistent so far -

Yeah its a great way to be diversified as its an ETF in the main non US market. Great way of balancing out US stocks/ETF.

I Agree [VanEck Vectors Vdo Gaming and eSprts ETF] is a very good pick for gradual growth over time. A good portfolio hedge

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I think having a Squad full of Stocks is the best way to Diversify.

Football has 25 people in a Squad, full of Attackers, Defenders, New Talent and Experienced players and such.

Your stocks should be a Team Beating Squad too. :laughing:

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You mean just like Tesla (Elon Musk) says it has bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, I was only wondering why he didnt put that money in DOGE :thinking:

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Split between 75 or so securities initially, I just wanted to own everything deemed a bargain from March crash lol. Working on concentrating portfolio to around 15. Iā€™ve since managed to trim down to 48 stocks.

Top1: 10% Top5: 39% Top10: 57%

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The allocation keeps changing as different stocks over take each other buuuut how much is this many? :joy:

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606 phew! I thought I had too many at 6 :joy:

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Itā€™s a never ending nightmare & I feel slightly traumatised, on the bright side Iā€™m up like 130% so šŸ¤·I guess itā€™s worth it?

In theory it works like a DIY etf with a bit of everything (not random itā€™s all related in someway) in it and should move with the market but Ive out performed the nasdaq, Dow, ftse, sp500, it so idk - maybe its just the market or maybe Iā€™m good at this - only been investing for 9 months or so it seems unlikely to continue from everything Iā€™ve read.
Plays on my mind a lot lately, Iā€™m not trying to brag or whatever, I genuinely donā€™t know how to take it all at this point since it blew past my expectations multiple times over, never actually had this much money in my life, itā€™s all very unexpected and sudden.

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606?!?! Are you not worried youā€™re spreading yourself MILES too thin?

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Yeah 606 seems too many by LOTS. I mean if you break it down that you spend 5 mins a month looking at each stock then thats 50 hours, or 2+ days out of 30 you have to spend looking at related things. I am guessing you have just bought things you randomly hear a good soundbite of as not sure how humanly possible to filter those?

I am also just thinking like when earnings our are for a company I own I would spend like at least an hour that day if not several hours following days analysing or reading up on results etc. So even an hour per financial quarter per stock would be 25.25 days every 3 months, or a 3rd of your timeā€¦ wowzers.

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My face after seeing this:

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I thinks itā€™s more like copying pies, donā€™t you think? Like 15/20 copied pies, or less + some individual picks maybe.

I dare to say that I personally donā€™t find that number too many, controversial, maybe. Why? Because it would rule out a lot of idiosyncratic risk (the number, not the actual portfolio see bellow).

Sorry @Nate306 but I wouldnā€™t say your portfolio is as diversified as it might look with 606 investments because still having top 5 be roughly 40% would actually make me say that you arenā€™t as diversified as people make it seem. But itā€™s actually really difficult to actually quantify how diversified someone is in a concrete way, so Iā€™m going to refer to active share as that is one way to quantify it.

When having such high concentrations youā€™re actually decreasing diversification which leads to a wider range of possible outcomes, with a disproportionately larger probability of a negative outcome. Intentionally under diversifying relative to an index in an attempt to add value, so stock picking, doesnā€™t seem to work out according to research. Let me explain it:

image

As active share increases (so the more you stray away from the index) the results of portfolios differ more from the index (as could be expected), but with lower average returns (see above image).

This shows that having less diversification lowers the expected average returns. This is because only a small percentage of stocks drive most returns (almost entire gain in US stock market since 1926-2019 is attributable to only 4% of stocks), thus we would want to hold as much as possible to just have those stocks.

4% of stocks responsible for most value generated by US markets between 1926- 2019:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3537838

Diversification is the only thing that actually increases the returns of a portfolio without increasing risk (measured in standard deviation), or reduces risk without decreasing returns (depends on how you phrase it but it boils down to the same thing).

So in short yes the more the better. The risk you take when picking stocks is not compensated risk, unlike market risk or factor risks (although picking large amounts of stocks factor wise does seem to have some merit to just a broad index, but the word large amounts stays important here), see the factor models (example Fama and French 3 factor one) if youā€™re interested in those.


Annual standard deviation is taken as a measure of risk here. It could be taken from the above graphs that reducing diversification doesnā€™t increase returns while increasing risk.

On the topic of having so many stocks instead of a broad ETF, I would say ETF is easier and ensures broad diversification but having a lot of stocks avoiding an ETF fee or expanding on an index (example: my national large-cap index only has 25 stocks, I would be more diversified than my national index) could be valid reasons for not going with an ETF. Also having the individual stocks directly has a great emotional effect of actually seeing what you own.

Also maybe going against all the above research I would even say that picking stocks sometimes is even superior, why you may ask? Because having a lower annual return actually can be outweighed if a person stays more motivated with an individual stock portfolio. This is similar to the debt reduction story, the math shows that paying off the highest interest debt first is best (broad indexing or factor investing also seems best according to research) but research has shown that people actually succeed in paying off their debt if they pay off based on emotional load (can be compared to people staying invested with individual stocks while selling out with ETFs).

So this long story in short just says that theoretically, it is shown that the more the better, but having less might work out better or worse depending on an individuals psychology. So IMO nothing is too much as long as it fits a person.

Edit: spelling, grammar and improved general readability

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50% nomatterwhatautoinvestforever ETF pie (BGCG, RBOD, INRG, SMT, ESPO, VHYL,VUSA)
40% 4-6 deepfkinvalue picks
10% maaad greater fool money

Usually no more than 15 stocks a time. It varies throughout the time, but
Top 1 = 16,59%
Top 5 = 60,72%
Top 10 = 88,89%

very informative read, many thanks for post :grinning: :+1:

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Unless I have misinterpreted it then the graph suggests that actually once you hit mid 20+ not much to be gained by larger number of stocks?

I think also you can have a more diversified portfolio with 20 stocks than some people with 50-100+ as if those 20 have specific different markets/target audience. Also ETFs are a double edge sword as for example S&P500 ETFs will track that, so heavily in tech for example, but might not have enough say Energy. What I like to use ETFs for is when I want to play a sector (Gaming, Semis) or region (China). But a semis ETF for example is only diversified within that industry, its still concentrated in the portfolio sense. Argument that S&P500 is diversified as it is a range but still I see it as a US play, 50% VUSA and say 50% of individual US stocks gives sense of diverse but it is infact all US so not as diverses as just putting 50% VUSA and say 50% FCSS (China) for example.

Anyway for me as you touched upon I need a vested interest in what I am invested in, so I have some ETFā€™s sure, but need those individual stocks to keep me interest and researching the market. For example I love Starbucks as a stock, and because I own that and research it then it leads me to other stocks who may be competitors or work with them etc so keeps my ā€˜investedā€™ in my stock picks.

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Partially true but not entirely, the y-axis is a (perhaps debatable) measure of risk, you indeed donā€™t reduce your risk by a lot after adding 20+ stocks, that is fully correct. But adding more stocks does increase your chance of getting those few stocks which drive most of the marketā€™s returns. So in short risk wise thereā€™s not much to be gained going larger than 20+ but expected return wise there is.

Very very true, good point!

Thats indeed a concern someone should have, S&P500 is very top-heavy so it could be argued that reducing weights of the largest caps could diversify you more. Diversifying indeed is not just about sectors but also about geography, currencies etc. But on those last things, thereā€™s less consensus because some markets seem to chronically underperform for example but it might just be that those things take more time. I personally think itā€™s important to not only diversify by sectors but also geographically and currency wise (examples: BNS for more Latin American exposure, or HIK for some MENA exposure)

Personally havenā€™t read too much about sector investing yet so canā€™t give a research-based informed opinion on that. Must say though that I also do this (have semis, spec. chems., data center reits) but through pies instead of ETFs because in general, those more focused ETFs have higher fees. Might actually take a look at the research behind this, but I can say that factor investing does have a solid basis and this might be comparable.

I also just need to see some stocks and receive some divis otherwise I really wouldnā€™t be motivated to put any money in at all haha. Investor psychology is the most important thing and the most difficult thing as well.

Fun fact: a lot of people investing in funds (havenā€™t read anything yet specifically about individual stocks in that regard) underperform their own investments which is funny and sad at the same time.

606 just keep an eye and be vigilant as am sure you know, " heavy is the head that wears the crown"

I donā€™t fully understand that second graph. How are they measuring risk? The only information it gives is saying itā€™s using standard deviation. Standard deviation from the mean of what exactly? What is the risk measurement here?