Investing

Lets talk about some fun....making money (and sometimes losing money). Some of you out there know that I am pretty passionate about investing both mutual funds and stocks. I use mutual funds exclusively in our IRAs for the majority of the money and stocks for some smaller amounts. My mutual fund strategy is look for solid managers that have had recent success (I use a 5 year benchmark). My strategy for stocks has been to identify solid companies that I either believe have a strong future or ones that sell products/services I like to use. My investment philosophy for stocks is pretty much buy and hold. I do protect my downside by placing limit orders 15% the current price....worse case scenario is that I buy it and the next day it tanks....the most I am out is 15%. This philosophy wasn't always in place....in fact my initial dive into the stock market was during the stock bubble of 1999 and I made some bad bad buys and chased some high flying stocks. I recently combined all my multiple spreadsheets that tracked stock performance onto Google Finance. It has made it much easier to get an updated performance of the stocks. Now that I did this it has given me perspective of my performance over the years...

So lets talk performance. Here are Midwest Family's Top 5 best returns for stock we have owned and also the Top 5 biggest losers that have graced our portfolio.

Our Top 5 Winners of All Time

1. CVS – 441%

2. NXTL – 437%

3. CYTC – 197%

4. SBUX – 111%

5. EQIX – 106%



Our Top 5 Losers of All Time

1. JDSU – (83%)

2. CE – (71%)

3. EMA – (67%)

4. ISO – (63%)

5. PLT – (62%)



It needs to be said that 3 of the Top 5 losses (JDSU, CE, PLT) were all results of buying into the stock bubble at the TOP and watching our money evaporate. Since then I have started using stop losses to avoid big drops. Many of you are probably saying "Geez, I wish I had stocks that went up 441% or 437%, and losses that only were at 83%". I need to point out that I put all my investable money into those losing stocks during the bubble and lost a lot of money…the stocks where I made great returns had small dollar amounts in them because I learned to diversify. So net/net its not as rosy as you would believe…but I can't complain. What has been everybody's BEST and WORST investment?? I look forward to checking the comment section to see what people say…