I really enjoy investing in the stock market. It really isn’t as mysterious as it seems to be, or that people make it out to be. It helps to know the basics, but any more than that isn’t necessary. Most of news and info out there is like listening to football experts talk about who will win the Superbowl this year: a little bit of data, a lot of talk.
As I talked about previously, I follow the Peter Lynch method. That is, buy what you know. With that, here is my investment portfolio as of a few weeks ago. I have cheat sheet after the stock chart that tells you which company each of the symbols represent. See how many you recognize.
The ones you don’t recognize (i.e all the SPDR or the iShares stuff) are ETF’s (Exchange Traded Funds), or basically kinda like mutual funds except without all the expensive managers. Since some of the funds came from rolling over my company 401k, I tried to keep them similar to what was in my P&G 401k.
So note which companies make up most of my portfolio: Apple, Google, Panera Bread, Starbucks. Those are also my best performing companies. They are also the companies I spend the most money on as a consumer (other than Google). Doesn’t take a genius to figure out to buy those companies!
| Symbol | Description |
|---|---|
| AAPL | APPLE INC (Duh) |
| AMZN | AMAZON COM INC (I think I make all my online purchase from Amazon) |
| BP | BP AMOCO PLC (BRITAIN) (Tried to buy low after the oil spill) |
| BRK/B | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC CL B (These aren’t the famous $120,000 / share ones, these are the “B” shares) |
| BWLD | BUFFALO WILD WINGS (Overpriced wings beer sports! Yet I still go there all the time…) |
| CBRL | CRACKER BARREL OLD CTRY STORE |
| CWI | SPDR INDEX SHS FDS MSCI ACWI |
| DIS | WALT DISNEY CO (Ask any parent about this one) |
| DVY | ISHARES TR DOW JONES SEL DIV |
| EWY | ISHARES INC MSCI SOUTH KORE |
| EXPE | EXPEDIA INC WI (I spent a lot of money on Hotels.com, which is owned by Expedia. If you can’t beat them, join them!) |
| FDX | FEDEX CORP |
| GOOG | GOOGLE INC |
| HCN | HEALTH CARE REIT |
| HMC | HONDA MOTORS LTD (JAPAN) *F* (I own an Acura) |
| KKD | KRISPY KREME DOUGHNUTS INC (Had one on a recent road trip… when are they opening one here???) |
| LNKD | LINKEDIN CORP (Companies pay a lot to recruit an employee… LinkedIn can take a big chunk of that!) |
| LUX | LUXOTTICA GROUP (ITALY) |
| M | MACYS INC COM |
| MCD | MCDONALDS CORP |
| MDY | SPDR S&P MIDCAP 400 ETF TR U |
| MSFT | MICROSOFT CORP (Love the Kinect!) |
| NFLX | NETFLIX COM INC (Bought in a little too early after Qwikster debacle… but they still have a lot of subscribers) |
| PCLN | PRICELINE.COM (switched over from Hotels.com and now use it all the time. No issues so far!) |
| PNRA | PANERA BREAD CO CL A (Work from there a lot. Spend money there and don’t even like the food) |
| REM | ISHARES TR MRTG REIT INDX |
| RWR | SPDR SERIES TRUST DJWS REIT |
| SBUX | STARBUCKS CORP |
| SNH | SENIOR HSG PPTYS TR SH BEN INT |
| SPY | SPDR TR UNIT SER 1 |
| TLT | ISHARES LEHMAN 20+ YR TREAS |
| TM | TOYOTA MOTOR CO (JAPAN) |
| UPS | UNITED PARCEL SERVICE INC. |
| VPRT | VISTAPRINT N V (NETHERLANDS) (buy a lot of stuff there. Then I saw our local bubble tea place using it for their customer loyalty cards) |
| VZ | VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS |
| WFM | WHOLE FOODS MKT INC (Whole paycheck… at least I can put some of it back into my pocket) |
| XLU | SECTOR SPDR TR SH BEN INT-UTLS |
| XLU | SECTOR SPDR TR SH BEN INT-UTLS |
| YHOO | YAHOO INC |
| ZIP | ZIPCAR INC |
| ZNGA | ZYNGA INC |