Dave at Investing Intelligently noticed that my benchmark Sleepy Portfolio returned a stellar 14.7% in 2006 and asked the obvious question: Why do I even bother with individual stocks instead of taking a passive approach using ETFs? It is a good question and as a matter of fact, I am slowly increasing the percentage of [...]
Many companies offer a Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) that is almost always a sure way to make some extra money. A typical ESPP plan allows employees to contribute some percentage of their pay and the shares are bought at a 15% discount to the lower of the starting or ending date. Even in the [...]
According to Microsoft Money, my portfolio returned 13.5% in 2005. My target “Sleepy” portfolio composed largely of ETFs returned 12.6%.
I bought the following stocks over the course of the year:
Anheuser-Busch (BUD): Buy: $46.71. Now: $43.51.
AIG (AIG): Buy: $53.84. Now: $68.41.
Home Depot (HD): Buy: $38.26. Now: $41.09.
Bank of Nova Scotia: Buy: $42.07. Now: $46.84.
Bell Canada [...]
