Long-term Investment Portfolio & Trader Types

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so I got curious and wondered what type of investing our investors did and what kind of trading our traders did and posted this thread asking for those willing to share to talk about their portfolio, what type is it, what companies do they favour and why did they choose the portfolio they did?

I’ll start off.

I started my portfolio with T212’s ISA account in mid-October, but have been learning how to invest for a couple months leading up to my account being opened and making my first deposit.

I favour a Hybrid-type portfolio I call Dividend Appreciation for my investing. I plan to make most my holdings pay me dividends that will accrue over the long-term. However, I will also take in a company or 2 of the growth type that I believe will succeed over the next year and hold on to them for some capital appreciation gains.

My portfolio is likely to consist entirely of stocks, with no current plans to hold any bonds. I will however have a position in at least 2 different ETFs for a little diversity exposure looking at Vanguard S&P500 and perhaps an emerging markets ETF. This will probably weigh about 20-25% of my whole portfolio.

For Stocks, I have long positions in PepsiCo (PEP) and Unilever (ULVR), with considerations towards Realty Income (O). I plan to make most my portfolio UK-based as this is the only way to avoid taxes being applied since I do my investing entirely through a stocks-and-shares ISA account with T212.

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Personally, I started mid September 2019. Rather new to the whole game, but took it as one of highlights to master for time to come. Plan to invest lot of my off time to do research.

Anyway regarding to portfolio, I started on Revolut. Mostly based on US stock. Since October I found out about trading212, been steadily moving more and more to t212.

My plan/goal is to build a passive income stream, for long term. Mostly focus on blue chips, large caps with proven history of dividend payment/growth. Buy and hold strategy.

Depending on type of opportunity risk/reward I will mostly pick half position to start off, position and full positions are for great opportunity companies who were severely undervalued due to noise rather then fundamentals.

So far i have full position at JNJ, ABBV, MO, SPG(overweight 3x full position, due to selloff), SKT, T.

Position at AVGO,MMM ,UNH, VTR, IMBBY, RDSB, BATS.

Half position at APPS, BP, CINE, ET, FRT, LTC, ORAN, REE.

Currently overweight on REITs due to sellof and opportunity to get a position at low. But in long term I dont tend to keep more then 15-20% on REITs.

Looking to add some new Euro stocks to diversify, plus some euro ETF or emerging markets etf.

Cheers

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Due to the fact that for several years I traded on forex the stock market is quite “slow” for me.
I know that finally I have to switch mentally to long-term investing.
At the moment, my strategy is:

  1. Buy shares that I think will bring 8% profit in a short time and then sell them.
    GLUU, AWRE, APHA, NIO, UMC, GSB, SRT, TTMI
  2. Collect shares so that several of them pay dividends every month
    SHO, BGS, CLNY, PSEC, O
  3. Monthly invest in large companies such as
    TSLA, NFLX
    I also have a good feeling about APPS and I buy their shares regularly.

Like @Vedran, I also started on Revolut recently moved to Trading212.

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Hi! I am probably the most boring from here since I am planning for a portfolio based on ETFs. The main idea of my approach is long term investing (25+) and also to have a big anchor in global ETFs.

I am also kind of new to this - started a couple of months ago with research on all areas (huge amount of information and strategies). I encountered Trading 212 as being available for my region and also having demo account (which were my goals at that point).

The main plan is to reduce as much as possible the costs and have what to choose from. After hovering a period on the EUNL+IS3N+IUSN combo I decided to go for more simplicity (and other reasons) and chose VWCE for ~85-90% (instead of EUNL+IS3N). Additionally, I replaced IUSN with IUS3.

In 10+ years might replace IUS3 with bonds which might even increase in proportion in the portfolio.
Also I am thinking at transforming this ~10-15% in a mini portfolio of stocks, but in this case I need a lot of time dedicated, so I will see how it goes in the future.

With new updates on Trading 212 (especially the fractional part) I feel it will be my main platform. Since I am a Revolut user too I am looking forward for their ETF offer in the future (plus that Revolut Trading for Standard users is not yet available in my country).

This is my plan for now and I am happy to be part of this vibrant community. :blush:

Good luck in your investing journey and I wish you guys an amazing new year! :wink:

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I started dealing on T212 in January, when I discovered they were no longer just a CDF platform. I have 30+ years of investing experience. I hold about 80 US stocks (AAPL, ABBV, ABT, ADBE, ADP, . . . , UPS, VZ, XOM, ZBH), some funds (Vanguard FTSE UK All Share, Vanguard 100% Equity, Fundsmith and Lindsell Train UK and Global) and ETFs to cover the rest of the world (ISF, VMID, VERX, VX5E, VJPN, SJPA, VAPX, CPJ1, VFEM, EMIM, SWDA). My portfolio is 70% US stocks. That is a bit more than the world weighting, but I like the liquidity of the US market and the fact their is no stamp duty or financial transaction tax on purchases. Of course the exchange rate exposure has to be accepted. The yield on my US stocks is 2.46% which is better than I could get with an ETF like VUSA, and more tax efficient. I have stocks in all market sectors but am overweight in consumer staples and healthcare, giving me quite a defensive portfolio.

I decided to use T212 initially to build positions in some US sectors where I am underweight. I am currently buying ADBE, AMZN, GOOG and V, according to their market weightings, so presently have 2.5, 2, 3 and 9 shares of these respectively and will add. I am reinvesting the dividends I’m obtaining elsewhere.

I like the look of the iShares range of sustainable themed ETFs. I notice that SUWS has been outperforming its base fund, SWDA, perhaps because oil stocks have been doing poorly lately. I bought a small amount of SUWS on T212 today.

I hear more and more people wanting to invest with a view to ESG criteria. Because of their lead in this area, I also recently bought shares in Blackrock.

I like buying companies whose products impress me, such as BLK, PEP, EXPE, MAR, MSFT, MA, DIS. I invested in MA because I noticed that all the new fintech banks, like Revolut, Starling and Monzo, are working with Mastercard. It did great last year, up 52%.

Good luck to all others using T212.

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Is there any ETF equivalent to VWCE but that pays dividends?

Cheers!

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How about VWRL and VWRD? These pay dividends of about 1.9%

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I’m beginning in this investment in stocks as well. I have few questions:

  1. Let’s say I manage to save 30% of my salary every month. From this 30% how much should I invest in stocks and how much should I set apart in a saving account (in case of emergency)? What strategies do you use?

  2. how much of the salary do you recommend to save as emergency savings? 2, 3…x?

  3. In Europe, is there any better option than savings account (in the CZ I can find at 1.6%p.a.), considering emergency money?

Thanks!

[Edit] It may be out of the main topic, but as everyone is mentioning each strategies, I wonder about this percentage. But I’m looking for stocks ideas in this thread as well!

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Generally it is a good recommendation to have 3 to 6 months worth of expenses in savings. These will be used in case of emergency, change of jobs, or other unpredictable situations. This way you don’t have to potentially sell securities at a loss should the market go down and you have no cash to cover for times of need. Obviously depending on how stable your job is you might adjust the size of your safety funds. With that said, a 1.6% savings account is quite good, in my country I get 0% on my savings.

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Nice to have you here. Many of us are beginners just like you, perhaps with just a few months or weeks difference in getting started. Others have practised their approaches for years.

Now first my opinions, then my choices with background for context:

  1. This will depend on your living situation. How many things do you own that you rely on for daily living? how likely are they to break or malfunction? do you have any outside sources of assistance should something go catastrophically wrong? If you look at your situation and feel you are in a rather stable position with little that could go wrong, then the vast majority of it should be invested. the inverse is also greatly true, if you have plenty of debts or things are getting bad then you should focus most (if not all) of your funds towards getting to a better place.

  2. There are recommendations that span from 3 months all the way to a full year depending on how soon you believe you can sort out the emergency. for an example lets say you lost your job. how long would it take you to find a new job in the same industry that would appreciate your experience? If you have the skills and qualifications can you find a new job before the month is out or will you have to search for many months to find a new source of income? the faster you can get rehired, the less emergency savings you need to cover your core expenditures. perhaps your mode of transport breaks down, do you rely on this to get to your workplace? how much will it cost to fix and what costs will you accrue in the meantime to still get to work, so as to guarantee you are earning and not out of a job?

  3. In the UK at least the accounts you can access have a wide range of interest rates. I used to be on an account which paid less than 1% for my main account, but I could set a certain amount of money aside in another savers account to get 3% on that balance, and as it was with the same bank, they rose the rates to a loyal member 5% rate. Currently however my account is a 0% one as its the only account I can have that does not have fees or charge the interest my balance earns. and as it stands my balance nears zero by month end anyways so I don’t need the few pence it will give me each month (I could get more by just buying 1 less snack or treat)

Naturally, there is no 1-stop answer when picking how much of something you should do, and frankly, recommendations are dead, people are alive. managing to set aside 30% is a great achievement when many people struggle to just make ends meet or keep on top of financial commitments. perhaps you wont be able to keep this fixed amount free every month, but sorting out your immediate problems should take priority over trying to solve future ones. Perhaps it may make sense to make a 50:50 split towards both until you feel you have enough for the first likely issue to come your way (scaled to the most serious) as if you try to scale to all issues, you will never have enough saved. If you want to put 20% towards your investments and just 10% in savings, consider perhaps keeping a minimum cash balance in your portfolio on the off chance you will need to withdraw some money, this wont be earning you money but it keeps open the chance to either solve an immediate crisis, or buy into a stock as it appears at bargain value. Perhaps if you do rather well for yourself in investing, you can take a portion of the earnings from your investment and set them aside to boost your emergency savings at a later date, but this can only happen from actively growing your investments.

Sometimes Investing just isn’t an option. get sorted in full those issues which will cause you worry with each passing day, that put your livelihood at risk.

My Situation

My situation is a rather comfortable one and as such I don’t feel the need to put any money aside in emergency savings. roughly 25% of my monthly wage is put entirely straight into my investments. If something happens, I can reach out to family for short-term support and pause my next months investment to repay them.

I can do this because my mandatory expenditures are just half of my monthly income. leaving the other half to in theory be put aside at any time to sort out an issue. and as issues will usually occur during the month (and thus before my next payday) i will know whether or not I need to change my schedule by the time my money is made available to me. The thing I credit most to allowing me to keep open half of my earnings is the fact I do not own a car/motorbike. I used to commute by bus and have since purchased a bicycle to commute so as to remove that reoccurring monthly expense called a bus pass. this means no fuel bill, no insurance, no emissions tax and no monthly car loan repayment. Better still, the cycling means I have no need for a wasteful gym membership (that many get but never really use or fully utilise) and any issues or repairs are at manageable prices much lower than auto-repairs. the yearly upkeep+repair for a bicycle is roughly just 1/10th of that of a car max.

Yes my approach is quite risky in its own right, despite having few actual risk factors to it. But I am single and just 26, I am constantly working on acquiring more skills and the worst that could happen to me is the need to start everything again from the beginning. I am at the best time of my life to start over, so I plan to make the most of it. I am still rather low on the career ladder so the only way is up and that will mean more money to put away in profitable investments. My investments themselves are instead rather defensive and secure enough to weather even a recession well.

my general motto is to inverse your investment style with your life situation:

stable life = take some risks
risky/unstable life = behave more defensive and securely
uncertain = reaffirm where you stand.

because being uncertain means being ill-informed, absolutely never make uninformed decisions as that’s no better than gambling your life away.

sorry for being long-winded :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Thank you for the great and detailed feedback, @Dao!

Currently, I’m in a stable job, which allows me to invest more in stocks. I might be able to invest up to 60 - 70% of my “non-spent” money every month and the rest would be to build my emergency savings (part in savings account and some set aside in Trading 212 as you suggested). I will see how it goes and adapt this percentage throughout the year if necessary :slight_smile:

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I also have cash savings in between 3 to 6 months of my total monthly cost of living, it should be enough for any big unexpected surprise. (0% interest on this)

I do have a fixed amount to invest every month, not in percentage, but in value… so when I get my salary I transfer this amount to T212 just to avoid keeping there in my account, I’m a cyclist, you know, there is always something important to upgrade in your bikes :grin:
I try to do a more boring/long term holding as 80% to 85% of my portfolio, also included some ETFs… and eventually I buy some “not good yet” stocks to fill the rest 15% to 20%.

Cheers!

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