How Successful Investors Get RICH

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Topic: How To Invest

Investing advice: How many stocks you should own

In our Financial Question of the Week, we recently asked TSI Network users how many stocks they own.

The results were as follows: 33% of users owned 16 to 30 stocks, 29% owned five to 15, 21% owned less than five and 17% owned more than 30.

So what is the right number of stocks to own? It’s a piece of investing advice we are asked about often, so it’s just one of the questions we answer in our free report: Canadian Stock Market Basics: How to Trade Stocks and Make Good Investments in Canada.

The foundation of your portfolio

Our investing advice is that how many stocks you should own depends, in part, on where you are in your investing career. Most people have only modest amounts of money to invest when they’re just starting out.

Initially, our investing advice is that you should aim for a minimum of four or five stocks — one from each of most, if not all, of the five main economic sectors (Resources & Commodities, Finance, Manufacturing & Industry, Utilities and Consumer).

How Successful Investors Get RICH

Learn everything you need to know in 'The Canadian Guide on How to Invest in Stocks Successfully' for FREE from The Successful Investor.

How to Invest In Stocks Guide: Find 10 factors that make your investments safer and stronger.

 I consent to receiving information from The Successful Investor via email. I understand I can unsubscribe from these updates at any time.

You can buy them one at a time or over a period of months (or even years) rather than all at once. After that, you can gradually add new stocks as funds become available, taking care to spread your holdings out according to our investing advice.

When your portfolio gets into the $100,000 to $200,000 range, you should aim for perhaps 15 to 20 stocks. If you’re married, it’s best to treat your family holdings as one big portfolio, even if you and your spouse keep your money separate. This way, you can be sure you aren’t operating at cross purposes, or investing too much of the family fortune in a single area.

Our three-part investing advice is key

You can gradually increase the number of stocks you hold when you get above $200,000 or so. When your portfolio reaches the $500,000 to $1-million range, 25 to 30 stocks is a good number to aim for. Of course, you may fall a few stocks below that range, or go a few above it, particularly when you’re making changes to your holdings. That won’t matter if you follow our three-part investing advice: hold mainly well-established companies, diversify across the five sectors and look for out-of-the-limelight stocks that may offer hidden or little-noticed value.

My upper limit for any portfolio is around 40 stocks. Any more than that and even your best choices will have little impact on your personal wealth.

As a member of TSI Network, you may have already seen Canadian Stock Market Basics: How to Trade Stocks and Make Good Investments in Canada. If you haven’t yet read this new free report, click here to download your copy today. We also encourage you to share the report with a friend. It’s our “thank you” just for signing up for our free daily updates.

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