🇺🇸Happy financial independence 🇺🇸
Hey friends,
Welcome to Better Have My Money, my Monday night newsletter about stocks, investing and (one day) financial independence.
This is a super quickie one cause tomorrow I’m heading off for July 4 weekend and I still have to pack and collapse into bed before making it through the last day of work.
But I wanted to do a check in on my portfolio, cause it’s been several months since we did. Plz observe this probably confusing graph that yes I did design in random rainbow colors because why not.
I think the labelling is pretty clear of what you’re seeing (it’s only taken me 33 years but I learned some basic Excel commands). The only “key” is that the pinky one signals anything over 10% in the portfolio percentage, and green represents anything over 50% in the price overall increase.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell when following along in my accounts week-to-week how well things are going overall, but breaking it down into this graph lets me notice some key details.
I’ve gotten down the percentage of Netflix (NFLX) stock overall (as in, how diversified my account is in terms of the individual companies I own ). Last time it was 28% of my portfolio. But…. it’s still too much, at 23%, and hasn’t been worth it comparatively. I’ve also talked before about diversifying your portfolio and how you don’t want too many eggs in one basket or unsteady weed shares in one account.
Shout out to Okta (OKTA) for rising 152% since May 14, 2018. Pretty insane — and Motley Fool listed it again as one of their stock advisor tips just last week.
Slack (WORK) is my newest buy, and it hasn’t moved anywhere yet but I’m hopeful.
I own too many random shares — one Nike, one Alibaba Group, one Apple, two Stitch Fix, etc. I could sell a few of them and use the profits to buy different ones OR I could keep buying more of those ones and increase each one’s share. Either way, I should do it soon rather than just continuing buying random stocks when bored.
I started a year and a half ago with $1943 in shares in three companies (Netflix, Estee Lauder and iRobot). I am genuinely flabbergasted that it’s grown, bit by bit, slowly slowly, to me putting in another $3k, which has risen to a value of nearly $8k currently. Unfathomable two years ago.
My money is up 55% overall since last February, which is honestly bonkers.
Basically this check in is to also give you an excuse to go and check in to your account/s and tally up all your money and investments.
How much are you up in a few months? A year? Which stocks are doing really well? Which are not pulling their weight? How has 2019 been?
It should be good news.
The US market opened at an all-time high today.
As I read in Robinhood Snacks (a morning newsletter by Robinhood) today:
The Dow just enjoyed its best June since 1938. The S&P 500 gets a participation trophy for its best 1st-half-of-the-year since 1997.
This definitely makes me… extremely nervous for the rest of the year ahead (it is impossible for me to trust this is only a good news story). But, it’s really really nice to see that 55% overall increase right now.
Gonna toast to my future financial independence all week.
Confusing term of the week: “Financial independence” — having enough passive income to live off without requiring employment or being dependent on others.
Speaking of freedom, may I suggest giving some dollars to The Independence Fund, which helps improve the lives of injured veterans.
Have a refreshing week,
Amber Jamieson
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As always, if you've got any questions about stocks, this is a shame free zone. Just reply and ask away.