Comments on: Individual Stocks: Not Gambling, But Not For Everyone Either

By: Carnival of Personal Finance #147: Q1 Financial Advice Edition | Personal Finance Blog by Money Ning

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:59:58 +0000

[...] Ryan Suenaga from Uncommon Cents presents Individual Stocks: Not Gambling, but not for Everyone Either. [...]

By: admin

admin — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:57:23 +0000

Gameplan,

Thanks. Nice to hear from a fellow investor, here in the USA or across the pond!

By: gameplan

gameplan — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:13:33 +0000

Hello from rainy England! I have stumbled across your blog on investing in individual stocks. I have invested in individual stocks for a few years and I found it too painful! All those great gains on some stocks going down the toilet on others.

I have recently started investing in ETFs. Index investing doesn’t have to be boring. There are so many indices to pick from that you can build a watchlist with lower correlation and pick the index that is on the up – (you can probably tell I am a trend follower!)

Any way keep up the good blogging!

By: admin

admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:22:51 +0000

Jason,

I completely agree with the need to diversify and your reason for doing so. As in the original post, I always tell people to have no more than 5% of their portfolio in any single stock.

I see your point re: owning individual stocks, but I’m not sure I think quite like that. I do, however, think that there is increased risk and to be prepared for that; but if you lose “only” 5% of your money, that’s a lot better than it could be!

By: Jason Unger

Jason Unger — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:09:42 +0000

My philosophy when it comes to owning individual stocks is that you have to be completely comfortable with the idea that you will lose all of that money.

The reason you should diversify is so if one company does fail, your portfolio doesn’t go from something to nothing instantly.