Comments on: Jim Cramer’s Real Money: Building A Ten Stock Portfolio

By: jay

jay — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:03:15 +0000

for an investor with very little disposable income (college student) how beneficial in the short term (3-5 years) is buying 5 shares of a blue chip’s stock such as apple right now.

By: gmv

gmv — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 03:30:25 +0000

I think there is a time and a place for mutual fund investing, and another for stock investing. Stick with mutual fund investing (esp. the low-cost index funds) where you either want a relative margin of safety or don’t have the knowledge/time to really pay attention to stocks.

IMHO, the average person would be better served to hold the bulk of their retirement funds [401(k), IRA] in a handful of solid mutual funds — funds where you can really “set and forget”. This is your retirement — you want it to be invested well enough that it actually grows but you want to minimize risk of huge losses as well.

Then with either a portion of retirement funds, or other funds outside of their retirement, they should indulge in stock picking if they want to. I agree that there is greater reward in stocks — but there’s also concentrated risk.

Jim Cramer does seem to have a valuable contribution to make for stock picking (once you get past the theatrics!) I’ve read part of this book, though it was really a little more than I was prepared to take on at the time.

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:30:59 +0000

This book is about individual stock investing, not mutual fund investing. Individual investing takes much more work, but the rewards are far better.

By: Outdoorgrrl

Outdoorgrrl — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 19:21:56 +0000

Maybe it’s just me, but owning just 10 stocks still seems pretty risky to me. I prefer the “Coffehouse Investor” approch. Owning 7 different low-cost index funds seems a much sane approach, especially if you aren’t starting with a lot.

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:01:51 +0000

This sounds good. As I get a bit more money saved, I’ll be able to add with a sharebuilder plan. Right now I only have Anheuser-Busch (local AND bluechip) and Bank of Nova Scotia, which surprisingly he endorsed on his show last night.

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 17:14:00 +0000

I don’t think multiple blue chips are a problem as long as they’re in different industries.

By: Shane

Shane — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 16:20:29 +0000

Hmmm… I wonder what you do if your neighborhood stock is also a Bluechip?