How many different stocks should I have in my portfolio to consider my portfolio well diversified?

Question by Troy: How many different stocks should I have in my portfolio to consider my portfolio well diversified?
Also, is NCC and BSC good long term investments?

Best answer:

Answer by src50
Its not the number of stocks as much as the number of market sectors. Don’t overinvest in any one sector.

Give your answer to this question below!




4 Responses to “How many different stocks should I have in my portfolio to consider my portfolio well diversified?”

  1. Tina says:

    Start out with five stocks in different sectors. Avoid financial until things get better. Avoid housing sector for the same reason. You don’t want to put good money into sectors that will give you dead money for a long time. Choose wisely. Get some dividend paying stocks and at least one foreign stock.

  2. Bob says:

    Studies have shown that you don’t really reduce risk by diversification beyond 10 stock, provided that the stocks don’t have a lot in common with each other. Holding 5 retailers and 5 oil companies is not diversified.

  3. Jonny says:

    I´ve been investing for more than 20 years and trading for almost 14, and I can tell you that if you want to make BIG and FAST profits, I recommend you trading rather than investing, trading can help you to go from rags to rich.

    If you are investing, you must have already achieved some degree of financial success, long term stock investing and/or FOREX can help you become much richer than you are today.

    My experiences as a Nasdaq Market Maker, Head trader of brokerage firms, and currently as a professional trader
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    We trade because we want quick, short term profits on a consistent basis. We want to cash flow the market. Milk it like a cow.
    Make consistent, small, short term gains rather than trying to hit a home run on every trade. Don’t ever forget that.
    Don’t marry a stock, marry the idea of making money trading stocks. That’s the only way to do it.

    For me “All stocks are equally worthless”

    I don’t hold on to any illusion that the stock market will continue to go up and provide a nice retirement for me.
    I could care less which way the market goes. It’s irrelevant to me if the market goes higher, crashes or moves sideways for the next 50 years. I really could care less. Stocks are just four letters with two prices next to them that I use to make a living trading.

    Trade ONLY when you have a clear, easy and identifiable advantage, because without a CLEAR EDGE your odds of success are NO better than a flip of a coin… That´s why so many new traders (and investors) lose money.

    Take a look at any daily chart of any index or stock and you’ll probably see the most volatility and the biggest opportunity for profit during the “First Hour” of the stock market’s opening.

    The popular thinking and conventional wisdom is that you should wait about an hour before you start trading.

    But if you do, you’ll miss the big, fast moves that stocks make as all the amateurs let their emotions out through their
    online accounts, usually right after they read some news headline or hear Maria Bartiromo go off about a stock on CNBC.

    It’s easy to see why trading the open is the market’s prime time for profiting from other online traders.
    The market’s open is very volatile – that is the perfect environment for LARGE, FAST profits.

    Learn to trade as a professional Market Maker ,not as an emotionally driven amateur trader or investor with few thousand dollars in an account at Etrade.

    There isn’t any other time during the day or any stock you can invest in, that can make you 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 or more points
    in minutes OTHER than during the first hour the stock market is open. That’s why I love trading the open so much.

    I trade only when I have an edge and that means “only the fisrt hour the market is open”.

    If you are a beginning trader, you can give yourself an unfair advantage in the market trading this way.

    I can continue giving you a lot of advises about how to make money trading, but if you ask me:
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  4. Mark L says:

    I would agree that between 5 and 10 stocks of different market caps in different industries. I would steer clear of National City as they just announced a big recapitilization deal that will essentially dilute their current shareholders to almost one-third. That stock is down big today and probably still has many losses to come. Bear is being purchased by JP Morgan for $ 10 per share and I don’t see any other buyers stepping up to pay more, so don’t buy.

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