Topic: How To Invest

Hello Pat: I want to thank you for your advice on planning a balanced portfolio and putting emphasis on getting balance in the five economic sectors. The question I have, though, relates to that good advice. You say that one should hold about 20 or 30 stocks, certainly no more than 40. But what is your advice if one has, say, the above number of stocks, and one wants to buy an attractive stock that you recommend? Does one buy it, or just add to stocks that are already in one’s portfolio? Looking forward to your response.

Article Excerpt

In general, if you already hold the maximum recommended number of stocks, and you want to add money to your portfolio, you would buy more of the stocks you already own. But if you spot a particularly attractive new buy, you may consider selling one of your current holdings to buy the new stock. To decide what to sell, you might look at stocks we view as holds. While we see these companies as worth holding, we think they are less attractive than our buys. So these should be among your choices when you look for stocks to sell. That’s especially so if you hold a lot of stocks we see as holds. You might also look to see if you are over-represented in some industry or economic sector, and sell something to improve portfolio balance. Or you may simply decide to sell some of your riskiest holdings. There’s no simple answer to portfolio-management questions like this. But if you stick to…