Portfolio name change

Sunday May 4, 2008

I keep thinking and this blog keeps evolving, I hope for the better! Last fall, when I decided to start tracking a portfolio of stocks I was interested in, I set up a 20 Stock Portfolio of companies I believed would be good investment prospects. After about 7 months of building up and tracking the 20 Stock Portfolio, I felt my interests were naturally divided into two areas, and thus I split my portfolio into two: an Income Portfolio and a Growth Portfolio. I started tracking the separate portfolios for the 2nd quarter of 2007.

I have come to think the Growth Portfolio was severely misnamed. Although there are some pure growth stocks in the portfolio, it is far from a 100% strict “growth” orientation. In my research I am trying to find stocks that I believe have a good chance to double or better over the next few years. Also, I have some particular interests such as South American stocks and markets. This means the stocks in the portfolio could fit in a wide range of categories: growth, value, turn around, international, cyclical. I have my own criteria and methods to evaluate whether I think a company and it’s stock are a good investment, and I do not stock to any particluar discipline.

One general criteria I have is market cap. For U.S. companies (and most foreign) I try to stick to those in the $2 billion or less market cap range. I believe an individual investor and researcher like myself can find an edge in smaller companies vs. the well researched and over-analyzed large cap companies.

The result of all of this deep thinking is a decision to change the name of my Growth Portfolio to Special Situations Portfolio. For now the portfolio itself is the same and the old links to the Growth Portfolio still work. As of now, the stocks are still tracked on a equal dollar, quarterly basis with no buying and selling. Hopefully, more advanced portfolio tracking is the next step for my evolution here.