Today I finally wanted to get to discussing my investment portfolio and some of the reasons behind my allocation decisions. I think its better to see actual ideas being implemented rather than just talk about generalities. Lets get right to it then. You can see the bulk of my portfolio on how it is performing at tickerspy here.

In general, I run a highly concentrated portfolio. I don’t buy into much of the standard efficient market and asset allocation dogma. I don’t own stock mutual funds or stock ETFs. Also, my asset class selection is driven in a large part by my macro outlook which I’ve discussed before. Currently, my asset allocation is;

  • Stocks: 45%
  • Commodities/Gold/Currencies: 23%
  • Real Estate: 17%
  • Cash: 15%

Stocks: I am a big believer in the power of dividends, especially in recession resilient sectors like energy and tobacco. In particular I’m a big fan of the MLP sector considering its tax deffered advantages combined with good yields. I have positions in EPD, KMP, and ETP. I also hold the UK/US utility NGG. MO is my tobacco holding and I think is still the best performing stock of all time in the US (no, I’m not kidding). Next, I have some very high yield holdings in the mortgage REIT sector; NLY and CIM. And finally, rounding out my stock portfolio is a position in the Berkshire of Cananda, Fairfax Holdings (FFH.TO). Most of these holdings I’ve had for a long time, my yield on cost is well over 10% and I’m quite content to continue to compound these returns.

Commodities: including gold and some currency holdings. The allocation to the commodity sector is a play on emerging market growth, a hedge against inflation, and a hedge against dollar devaluation. I also own these holdings in a unique way, through several structured products. Basically, the structured product exposes me to all the upside in the commodity sector for a period of time and at the same time protects my principal 100 percent (and is FDIC insured). I’ll explain structured products in a later post but they are a combination of options and bonds into one investment vehicle. I consider these investments like restricted cash since I have no downside.

Real estate: this is one property that is 100% paid for and receive enough income in the year from it that there is zero out of pocket costs for me. Even post the real estate crash it has been a great investment – it was purchased in 1992. It is also an inflation hedge.

Cash: rounding out my portfolio are my cash holdings. As I said in my post on the gov’t being after your savings leaving this cash in idle investments like money market funds or CDs is a losing proposition at this point in time. I manage this cash very actively, more than any other part of my portfolio, and use it to generate income with conservative option strategies. My goal is to generate 10% annual returns or more on this cash. So far, so good.

That rounds out the major chunks of my portfolio and asset allocation. You can follow the stock and commodity holding performance at the Tickerspy link I gave above although it is not adjusted for  the time of the investment or position size.


11 Comments

David Fleischer · November 6, 2010 at 6:32 am

Hi Paul,

In your asset allocation, I see you have 17% in real estate. Is that is REITs or do you won a house that you are including in this…?

Thanks. Sorry for all the questions!

David

    libertatemamo · November 6, 2010 at 2:18 pm

    Hey David, that’s a house I have in Florida. I do own a couple of mortgage REITs (NLY, CIM) which are included in my stock allocation.

David Fleischer · November 6, 2010 at 10:04 pm

Got it. Thanks. So far, I have managed to miss every opportunity to buy a place. At one point I was looking in the US but was concerned about being a long distance landlord. So the whole in my allocation is real estate… need to figure out how to address that.

David

Rick · November 13, 2010 at 11:46 pm

Paul:

I like your style and already own some NLY, CIM, HTS and RSO.

Would you look at my asset alocation and give me some feedback and critique? How do send it for you to look at?

Recently I sold some positions under the influence of Dent and the like, which have cost me, however,I would like to do something with that cash. Would you entertain doing something like that?

Rick

    libertatemamo · November 14, 2010 at 10:56 am

    Sure thing Rick I’d be happy to take a look. You can send me an email at paul.novell@gmail.com

    Paul

David Fleischer · May 23, 2011 at 7:25 am

Hi Paul,

I was just looking at your portfolio on Tickerspy. It looks like it really has not changed for a long time. Is this right or has it not been updated for a while.

I was wondering if you ever went into a Muni bond fund like MUB…

David

    libertatemamo · May 23, 2011 at 8:37 am

    David, I haven’t updated tickerspy in a while. For my muni investments I went with the closed end muni funds I’ve mentioned before like NXZ, NPI, etc…

    Paul

David Fleischer · May 24, 2011 at 6:42 am

Got it. I also know you have mentioned MUB and FTABX…is there a particular reason you went with NXZ and NPI?

David

    libertatemamo · May 24, 2011 at 8:55 am

    NXZ and NPI are closed end funds. They use leverage to juice up returns which I think is safe conservative strategy for bonds. They also trade at a discount to net asset value. MUB and FTABX give you about 3.5% to 4% tax free yields, NXZ and NPI give you about 7.3% due to the leverage and discount to net asset value.

    Paul

David Fleischer · June 14, 2011 at 3:25 am

Paul,

I know you have written in the past of ETFs and Mutual Funds that focus on dividend paying stocks. Are there any that you recommend?

David

    libertatemamo · June 15, 2011 at 11:04 am

    Hey David, Frankly, no there is none I would recommend. Since I don’t invest in any funds or ETFs for dividends I haven’t spent a lot of time looking into them. I’d rather have a portfolio of 5-10 individual dividend paying stocks. If you held a gun to my head I would say to look into the dividend ETFs I list in my monthly income update for a start. ETFs like DVY, IDV, SDY, etc…

    Sorry about that but I don’t like recommending things I would personally not put money into.

    Paul

Comments are closed.