This article is part of our Rising Star Portfolios series.
It's been a little over a year since I started my Rising Stars portfolio -- and it's the perfect time to take a step back and assess how well I'm meeting my goals and objectives. You should do the same with your portfolio on a regular basis.
The Motley Fool has been giving me and a few other analysts real cash to invest any way we wish, in full view of our faithful readers. My "multivitamin" portfolio is designed to be well-rounded, diversified, and complete enough to serve as an educational guide for most investors.
The differentiator is that this is a screening portfolio; all my stocks have come from the various screens I've designed and have been running for some time now. By following along, then, you should be able to learn how to properly construct a portfolio, and also how to set up screens in order to generate your own stock ideas.
How am I doing?
You can see every transaction I've made on my home page (with links to all the buy reports). More than a year in, I hold nine stocks. As of the Dec. 1 close, I'm in positive territory, slightly trailing the S&P 500's performance.
I'll eventually build out to a core of 12-15 holdings, properly diversified across size (large, medium, and small caps), style (growth and value), geography (ensuring a proper amount of international exposure), and industries.
Looking more closely at diversification:
| Company |
Current value |
% of port |
| Coca-Cola |
$1,065.92
|
11%
|
| lululemon athletica (Nasdaq: LULU ) |
$1,295.00
|
14%
|
| Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ ) |
$1,019.68
|
11%
|
| Abbott Labs (NYSE: ABT ) |
$1,086.20
|
12%
|
| II-VI (Nasdaq: IIVI ) |
$742.80
|
8%
|
| Kulicke & Soffa Industries (Nasdaq: KLIC ) |
$1,028.96
|
11%
|
| Google |
$1,244.04
|
13%
|
| National Oilwell Varco (NYSE: NOV ) |
$580.64
|
6%
|
| LSB Industries (NYSE: LXU ) |
$1,245.72
|
13%
|
| Totals |
$9,308.96
|
100%
|
I currently have 54% of the port in large caps, 14% in mid caps, and 32% in small caps. Over the next year, I'll put more emphasis on mid caps, and thereby lessen the current high exposure in small caps. All companies are headquartered in the U.S. except for lululemon (Canada) and Kulicke & Soffa (Singapore), but I feel I have lots of international diversification considering the global sales totals of most of the companies here.
Foolish bottom line
While I'd rather be beating the index, one year's performance doesn't tell us much, and I'm very pleased with how the portfolio is rounding out. I've had a blast screening for winners, performing my due diligence, and executing the buys for all of the world to see.
We have lived -- and invested -- through one of the craziest, most volatile, and interesting periods the stock market has ever seen. It may seem natural to throw up your hands in exasperation and swear off stocks forever. But I firmly believe we'll see some sense of stability return sooner rather than later, and if I'm right you'll want to be in the market, with a properly diversified portfolio in place, ready to reap the rewards that only the market can give you in the long term.
Hang in there, and keep following along. You can start by adding the companies that interest you to your free, personalized Watchlist.
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