The Rule Breaker Portfolio contained, at its launch date on August 4, 1994, an initial amount of $50,000. Some people invest more and many people invest less. We chose $50,000 because it represents a middle territory for our readership. Anyway, it's also a solid amount for keeping commission costs down, and enables one to diversify enough (holding about 12 stocks--who would want to diversify further?). Please keep in mind, dear Fools, that commissions can really hurt equities investors who invest $10,000 or less, sufficiently diversified. If you have further questions about this, please go directly to our Fool's School -- and do NOT collect $200 -- and read our 13 Steps to Investing Foolishly. We wrote those articles to help all people in all situations.

The Portfolio's allocation loosely conforms to the writings in our book, and our Fool's School. (You can read more in The Twelfth Step of our Investing Foolishly series.) Essentially, we plant our foundations with the Dow Dividend Approach, mix in some medium- and small-cap growth companies, and occasionally sprinkle on a short sale or two. In the past, some of our best stocks have done sufficiently well to overweight them in our portfolio -- that's OK, because that's part of the idea. We ride our winners. The point is to look at the initial amounts we put in any stock, because that was the "portfolio allocation" model that we intended -- we never load up disproportionately on any one stock, and suggest you shouldn't either. It's unFoolish.