sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit

sometimes i sit and think, and sometimes i just sit

If you get a chance, give Courtney Barnett a listen (shown on left).  When it comes to investing, are we sitting and thinking?  Or are we just sitting?

I am bothered by the performance of my portfolio.  Not just this year.  Let's be honest, outside of MFI, it has been somewhat short of stellar.  I can rationalize that I am a value investor and value is just out of vogue. But deep down I know I have never had the stomach to be a true value investor.

I seem to do best with buying (with some thought/process) and then walking away and not obsessing.  It is the obsessing and regular second-guessing/meddling that really hampers my portfolio performance.  I have actually done best with the smaller baskets - gold/miners or small banks.

If you have been reading my blog for a while and this sounds familiar... that is because I have had this internal debate before.

My Thoughts

In an ironic way, I don't think this blog helps.  It makes my attention span too short as I am writing about what goes on every week.  I think I might pare it back to just an update once a month.

Then I look at my MFI tracking and the dividend approach just seems to work so well.  Why am I screwing around using other approaches, when I have at my fingertips an approach that works great?

Right now I am about 45% in dividend portfolio and 35% MFI (20% Misc).  I think that is backwards. 

• Pare back my dividend stocks to a core group of 10.  35% of total investment.
• Change my Misc approach to baskets: shipping, bio-pharma, energy, small banks and other.  Each basket has 10 holdings so I can go with higher risk holdings, but not spaz out everytime I hit an air cushion.  Then I can only change baskets once a year.
• Expand MFI Formula (with extra funds from dividend paring) to simply be the universe of MFI stocks at 2.4%+ yield.  So remove random number generator.

I think there is a good chance I'll make these moves.  And then stop hyperventilating so much.

More sitting, and then thinking,  to follow.