How many stocks should I have in a portfolio?
Today I'm gonna address this question...
Hi, welcome to the #AskDrWealth series!
We run a lot of investor education and
we receive a lot of questions from the students.
One of the most popular questions of all is;
How many stocks should I have in a portfolio?
So today I'm going to address this question.
I'm Alvin, the founder of Dr Wealth.
So let's begin now.
Let's imagine there's 2 person:
Investor A and investor B all right
say investor A only have five stocks
in his portfolio,
while investor B has 30 stocks.
So you can say one is more concentrated while
B's portfolio is a lot more diversified.
And imagine they equally weight their portfolio
so which means,
for A, each stock represents about 20% of the portfolio
and B is about 3% okay?
So in this case right...
a lot of people would think that
having 5 stocks is better than
having 30 stocks...
because having 5 stocks means
you have less stocks to monitor,
you require less effort to do so.
But actually we beg to defer because
for A,
in this instant is that,
let's say one of the stock goes terribly wrong and
say it's a fraud...
so the stock goes to zero.
What happens is that...
A would actually stand to lose 20% on this portfolio
while if, B has the same exact stock as A,
which turn out to be a fraud,
and goes to zero,
he will only lose 3%.
Which means for A,
it is a very unforgiving portfolio.
So which means A would have to
technically do a lot more work
to ensure that the stock picks are very correct
else he's gonna suffer major losses.
For a concentrated portfolio,
actually one has to do more work
then a diversified portfolio.
So that's point #1.
And for point #2,
is that there are advantages for concentrated portfolio.
And now let's explain that.
Let's say, we draw a time series here.
The vertical axis being the "amount of profits"
or "portfolio value".
And here is the time series.
Let's say, the zero point is here.
So you can either make money
or you can lose money in your portfolio
as time goes by.
So for example,
on the concentrated portfolio,
you can see that the growth
can be very fast on the upside
and it can also be very bad on the downside.
Let's use 'green' for a diversified portfolio.
So let's say you start from the same point,
you don't expect the growth for the portfolio to be
as good as a concentrated portfolio,
if they got the stocks correct.
Likewise, the downside is also lesser,
if they get things wrong along the way.
So which means the diversified portfolio
you have lower downside
which we have mentioned previously in point #1,
but it also have lesser upside,
compared to a concentrated portfolio, in this case.
So in other words, if let's say you are someone who
is willing to go for higher returns,
you need to be able to stomach greater risk.
Wssentially that's what is trying to say.
So it depends on how you want to see it.
I would say that if you're an experienced investor,
it makes sense to do a concentrated portfolio.
But if you are a beginner,
you should be doing a diversified portfolio
it goes back to point #1,
that it is a more forgiving portfolio
if you diversify your stocks,
while it is more unforgiving
if you concentrate your position.
So I would say, if you want to
be a good investor,
you can aim for a concentrated portfolio.
And if you're beginner,
go for a diversified portfolio.
And the next question that we usually get is
How many stocks is considered as 'diversified'?
So research has found that golden number is
actually 15!
If you have 15 stocks in different sectors and industries,
you would have reduce your unsystematic risk
or in other words stock picking risk,
by 90%!
So anything above 15,
you have marginal benefits of diversification.
If you are starting out,
and you want to buy stocks,
I think you should have minimally 15 stocks
in your portfolio for start.
So that's my answer to this question.
I hope that you have a greater understanding on portfolio diversification.
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