Overall the stock picking has been great so far.
1 yr returns were 16.8% vs the 'stache 12.7%
3yr annualised returns (so includes my huge hit on CRC earlier last year) 24.7% vs a boring 8.3%.
BUT dominated by a couple of really good pics - CRC PRU. And helped by more modest gains on OROCF, DOW and JNJ.
Now it's getting harder to find the gems. So as I said intend to pull back into mostly my AA indexes.
But it's been fun, and I'll hold the bets on OROCF and OMAG. Plus the safer dividends of NHI and WBG
Sorry I’ve been a bit tardy updating the stock picking action, just been darn busy at work lately.
After the recent continued run up (as I mentioned earlier) I decided to take profits and exit most of my individual stocks and increase the concentration in 1 stock – the lithium miner OROCF - and the rest is back into the portfolio index mix.
I found that the dividend stocks that looked good and outperformed a while ago when I started getting back into the picking game have started to just mirror (or underperform) the wider market and figured I’d take my winnings now. Still have some cash waiting for an opportunity to pick up a couple of targets a bit cheaper than now. Problem is Thorstache keeps making the market go up... ;-)
Here’s the status of the picking account as of today*
OROCF
My favourite “I think I know better than the market, because electric cars, wind and PV systems are going to take off IMHO. Lithium ion is still the best game in town, and therefore Li is essential to the success of moving the world’s economy economy from molecules to electrons. OROCF has the cheapest Li mine on the planet and is a pure Li play.”
Bought 1700 @ $2.60 on 10/25/2016
Bought another 3500 at $3.59 10/26/2017
Now $4.55, so balance at $23,659 incl. a paper profit of $6,681 = 39% so far (they don’t yet pay a dividend)
OMAG
Wow, what a ride lately. Penny stock of a super dooper speculative real estate deal company that’s close to a net negative cashflow induced bankruptcy. Very poor liquidity to trade. Lots of insiders with most of the stock. But if they pull it off…
Bought 25,000 @ 19.2c
Now X so paper profit of $1,208 = 25% so far (they don’t yet pay a dividend)
But super volatile! In between buying at 19.2 cents and now, the stock went as low as 4.5 cents a share… uuuggghhh on a tear last few weeks, so maybe someone knows something positive. Fingers crossed.
Other dividend stock holds:
NHI
National Health Investment REIT. Bought 100 for $7750 (50 at $74.33 on 1/17/17 and 50 at $80.63 08/22/17) and it’s been paying me a steady 5% dividend ever since. Price hasn’t moved much. Up just $45 = 0.6%.
WBK
Westpac bank (Australia). Bought 263 @ $22.96 for $6,038 on 06/27/2017 and now up $318 = 5%. But paying a sweet 6% dividend.
*after some posts in investor alley being all snarky recently because we’re talking here about beating the market, a statistical losers game and very non-MMM/BH, please remember we are having a bit of fun and only playing with a very small % of the ‘stache. I do not advocate buying and selling individual stocks with your FIRE ‘stache. In my case specifically, IF I underperformed the market by say 50%, and market went up 20% and my stock picks 10%, the delta to my retirement stache would be… about -0.3%
My 1 year return is 15%, whereas my main balanced index stache is up 16.4%. Ooops. Not so good. But, my 3 yr return is 24.3% vs 8%, and most of that is since start of 2016.
YMMV