My Financial Journey

Well I have been investing for 14 full years now and must say I’m very happy with the performance of my individual stocks. I think most of this has been luck as I’ve owned some of the best stocks of the last 20 years (Netflix, Amazon, etc), but also think I can take a tiny bit of credit of having some foresight on those companies and not buying into the noise in the financial news.

I’ve actually only invested $149k in individual stocks and yet they were worth over $688k. On the flip side I’ve invested over $302k in index funds and they are worth $554k. Had I not toyed around and gotten “lucky” with my individual stocks my life plans would be a little different right now.

I actually only had 10 stocks beat the market this year and 12 stocks that trailed the market, yet my overall individual stock performance almost bested the market by over 10% points for 2019

Shopify led the way with a banner year almost tripling in value in 2019 and has now grown to become my 3rd largest individual holding.

Chipotle made the list for a 2nd year in a row and is completing its massive comeback after being on my biggest loser list in 2015,2016, and 2017.

Apple was actually a surprise for me being the largest company in the world but still growing at a small cap rate.

Actually with the exception of Shopify and Alteryx I would have looked at the rest of the stocks on the list as boring stable companies and here they are outpacing many of the supposed high flyer stocks in a banner year for the market.

Shopify +187.17%
Chipotle Mexican Grill +93.87%
Apple +86.16%
Alteryx +68.27%
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners +44.77%
Costco +44.28%

As far as biggest losers there really is only one. BJ’s was down nearly 25% this year. Not sure what to say here – they are a small restaurant stock and account for 0.50% of my nestegg.

BJ’s Restaurants -24.94%

In annual tradition I will list all of my current investments. These really do not change significantly from year to year as I don’t do a lot of buying and selling and well now as my portfolio has grown so big the amount of money I am putting in towards new investments tends to be sort of insignificant.

Not really too much to add over last years analysis as my portfolio is essentially the same with only 2-3 minor purchases this year.

In annual tradition I will list all of my current investments. These really do not change significantly from year to year as I don’t do a lot of buying and selling and well now as my portfolio has grown so big the amount of money I am putting in towards new investments tends to be sort of insignificant.

That being said there was some movement around this year. The mutual funds are part of my 401k and are a very similar percentage of my overall retirement nestegg. I max out my 401k each year and kind of just set it and forget about it. My 401k makes up about 45% of my nestegg.

My individual stock holdings comprise of about 30-40 stocks with the new addition this year being that I am now including some private stock I had previously not included that is actually my largest individual stock holding. My top 5 public stock holdings this year are Netflix, Tesla Motors, Amazon, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Under Armour which are the same five from last year with a few of them flipping spots.

I feel super good about that top 5. My Tesla stake has increased due to the large investment I had in Solar City which the acquired as well as most of my investment money this year going to Tesla. I feel very strongly that their future will be very bright and have a big enough and diversified portfolio that I can probably take a larger risk there without it really affecting my overall portfolio too negatively.

When I started this blog in 2005 I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing it. I knew it was for me to learn about myself, but I think one of the big things I remember thinking at the time was it would be a vehicle for me to be able to look back in time and see how the day to day, month to month, and year to year gyrations of the stock market mean nothing in the grand scheme of things and how the people who promote the gyrations and the people who listen to and react to those short term gyrations are foolish.

Well 10+ years of blogging and tracking my accounts have left me with a picture that I think the 26 year old MFJ thought he would see down the road.

It kind of blows my mind looking at that chart – especially the trajectory. That whole compounding thing is pretty powerful. The other thing that kind of blows my mind is that you have to almost squint to see the “Great Recession” where the economy and stock market imploded and if you listened to any of the news media the world was going to come to an end. Even some of the best Personal Finance bloggers out there at the time were losing their minds.

But just look at that picture – if you did anything other than plow your money into the market your entire lifetime you were throwing away boatloads of money.

Now granted I have slightly outperformed the market over the years, but here is a stat for you that I’m sure most people would argue can’t be true.

The SP500 during this tumultuous decade of lost wealth, stagnating economy, and just general doom has been up 12 of the last 13 years.

That’s right since 2003 the SP500 has only been down 1 time. That’s 92%!! The last decade plus has been an absolutely incredible time to invest in the stock market, but again I bet 92% of people you asked would have told you the stock market has lost money almost every year.

Even the last 13 years aren’t even that remarkable. Since I have been alive the SP500 has only been down 6 times. So 30 out of 36 years I’ve been alive – the SP500 has had positive returns.

The odds are definitely in your favor so if you haven’t already – get started, start investing, and create your own amazing chart of wealth awesomeness. All it takes is saving money, investing money, and time – then wait for the amazing things to happen.

Here are my top stock performers for 2015

Netflix +135.45%
Amazon +118.67%
Starbucks +46.70%
Arista Networks +19.30%
IPG Photonics +18.39%
Under Armour +18.39%
Costco +12.58%
Panera +12.42%

Obviously Netflix and Amazon knocked it out of the park this year. It goes to show you that the same stocks can carry your portfolio over time. Netflix and Amazon are some of my biggest winners historically and yet here they are leading the charge again this year. Though Netflix and Amazon were top losers for me last year and I wrote this in last years report about Amazon – looks like Jeff was listening

Amazon – Jeff Bezos will take over the world – end of story. The stock market only concerns themselves with short-term results which he cares nothing about. Keep going Jeff!

Under Armour is a repeat top performer from last year and I think the future is extremely bright for all of the stocks on this list and I expect to see them on future top stock lists.

And now for the losers…

3D Systems -73.63%
Stratasys -72.11%
InvenSense -37.15%
Sam Adams -31.73%
Whole Foods Market -30.78%
Chipotle -29.23%
Bidu -19.51%

Ouch 3D printers 🙂 Two years in a row of just getting pummeled for anything 3D printer related. They were wall street darlings a few years ago and now wall street hates them – we’ll see long term if the industry and these companies are viable businesses.

Sam Adams, Whole Foods, and Chipotle – not a great year for food stocks and lots of questions around competition in these areas. These are all top notch companies run by visionaries in their field and my money is on them winning in the long term just like they have historically. They may go through some growing pains, but long term they have better talent and better strategies.

Bidu – Anything Chinese will be volatile as is their entire economy. Bidu is a tech titan and should be a major player in a major market.