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What 266 Stock Picks Taught Me...
Published about 2 months ago • 4 min read
YouTube is full of "buy these 5 cheap stocks NOW" videos because they're easy to make. But few of those creators are actually buying those stocks—and even fewer list every pick and track it in public, forever.
I do. Every pick, tracked from the day the video dropped. No deleting the losers and no cherry-picking.
Five years and 266 picks later, the sheet has taught me some things I didn't expect:
1. I'm wrong more than it feels like.
63% winners, 37% losers. More than 1 in 3 picks lost money.
2. A tiny handful of picks did almost all the work.
38 picks doubled or better — Eli Lilly (LLY) +410%, Caterpillar (CAT) +347%. Just 10 picks produced about a third of ALL the gains. Meanwhile 27 picks lost HALF or more, and a few went basically to zero.
3. I couldn't have told you which 10 they'd be.
Hell no. I thought Caterpillar was an incredibly boring pick.
4. Several "safe" names were a trap.
Clorox (CLX)? I picked it 4 times. Lost all 4. A household name everybody calls safe.
5. Average and typical aren't the same thing.
Average pick: +33%. The typical (median) pick: only +18%. The big winners pull that average up and make everything look better than it was.
Quick note: my sheet tracks price only — no dividends paid or reinvested. Since most of these are dividend payers, the real total returns are higher. But simple price return puts us in the ballpark, and I'd rather undersell than oversell.
6. The boring easy button kept up with all of it.
Since January 2021, VOO returned 125% with dividends reinvested. Even without reinvesting a single dividend, it's up 119%. Zero research. Zero stress.
DividendChannel.com
7. Being IN the market beats being clever about the market.
Yes, this was one of history's longest bull markets. That's the point — nobody knew that in advance. You only catch the huge up days by already being there when they show up.
8. Plan, don't predict.
If I had to guess, we'll see a severe downturn or two in the next ten years. But even the experts get the timing wrong. Here's what we do know: if American businesses keep growing and innovating, they'll make more money. Rising earnings pull the market higher — just like they have throughout history.
TKer by Sam Ro
So here's where five years of tracking left me: Make an index fund like VOO or VTI the core. Sprinkle in a dividend growth fund like SCHD. Then treat individual picks as the smaller satellite holdings to fulfill something you want more of like dividend income or international stocks.
I'll keep making the pick videos. I'll keep updating the sheet. And you can keep checking the results anytime.
Brian Bollinger at SimplySafeDividends.com ran a $1M portfolio comparison of Dividend Aristocrats (companies in the S&P 500 index that have increased its dividend payout for at least 25 consecutive years) and the ever popular SCHD. Most of you will be pleased with the result...
It isn't everyday when you hear someone new who has really interesting things to say about investing and investor psychology. But, Paula Pant had on historian Joseph Moore who thinks were living in the best era ever... oh, and they kick off the episode recapping his stunt that made him a *legitimate* billionaire!
Disclaimer: This is not investment advice. Do your own research before making any investment decisions.
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Each week you'll learn how to be a better dividend investor and follow the journey of a welder with a passion for passive income to $1,000,000 and beyond.
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