Let's face it. Picking your own stocks is an egotistical thing to do. You're essentially betting that you, Joe Oddlot, in your boxer shorts at your Compaq laptop, can beat the biggest minds and the best money out there -- people running billion-dollar mutual funds and private money, not to mention wearing pants.
Of course, I think it is possible to win this game, but that doesn't change the fact that playing takes a great -- maybe even a silly -- degree of self-assurance. But once in a while, even this egoist goes looking for a serving of humble pie. I look to funds.
The three Bs
There are three reasons why I use funds in my own portfolio, and why I think everyone, even stock hounds, should consider them. They all start with B: ballast, bliss, and brains.
Ballast
It's not a requirement for every portfolio, but investing is a psychological game, and ballast can help by smoothing that otherwise rough market ride out. If you like small caps, as I do, the weekly gyrations can be nauseating. If you like value stocks, as I also do, waiting for the Street to reward out-of-favor companies can be worse than that awful, burning, "I gotta go but I don't have time," sensation we all got while playing hide-and-go-seek as kids.
Don't believe me? Take a look at a chart from some of the stocks I've owned or contemplated this year. Big positions in Home Depot
Bliss
We could all use more of that, no? Listen, I like digging into company financials and market maneuvers. It can be very rewarding to try and figure out whether Micron Technology's
But that can get tiring. There are times when I'd rather be doing just about anything else. (Like now, perhaps, as my wife heads out into the sunshine for a bike ride and I sit here working on a hunchback and a case of carpal tunnel syndrome ... ) Unfortunately, you can't make informed investment decisions if you skimp on the homework. That's why I like the option that funds offer, of relying on other people's ...
Brains
Like I said, stock picking is a bit of an egoist's game, but we'd be foolish (with a small f) if we didn't admit that other people could do at least as well as we could. No matter how smart we might think we are, more brains can't hurt. That's why I don't mind the thought of handing my money over to some of the most time-tested and trusted brains in the biz. In these shops, teams of people -- like Chuck Royce or Bill Nygren at Oakmark -- work through all the details to arrive at market-beating investment decisions.
Of course, finding the right brains to give me the bliss to provide the ballast is a pretty daunting task. If you think picking stocks is hard, how about choosing funds? There are a lot more of those. Thousands more.
That's why, when it comes time for fund-finding, I don't even try to do it on my own. I check out my colleague Shannon Zimmerman's Motley Fool Champion Funds newsletter. Shannon picks only the cheapies -- the shops likely to beat the market -- and he even calls out the duds on a monthly basis.
A free trial will show you the details, but here's the skinny: The vast majority of Shannon's funds are beating the market, and they're doing it by a combined 7 percentage points. If he can keep that up, I may just hang up my own green eyeshade, rely on his brains, and help myself to a lot more bliss.
This article was originally published on Feb. 2, 2006. It has been updated.
Seth Jayson likes picking his own stocks, but sometimes he'd rather be riding his bike. At the time of publication, he had shares of Home Depot and SanDisk but no position in any other company mentioned here. View his stock holdings and Fool profile here. Home Depot is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. Time Warner is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick. Fool rules arehere.
