2nd Portfolio Blog Post

My main business strategy for my investment portfolio was to create a diversified portfolio including a variety of companies from different market sectors to minimize risk and create an increase in value and profits. I also wanted the opportunity to learn and evaluate different companies across multiple markets. It was important to me to invest in companies that I had previously known a little about or have been a loyal customer previously. The companies I chose were based on those two factors. In addition, I am interested in learning how companies of larger size compared to small and medium size are affected by stock price. For example, does this change how much the price fluctuates or is size not a factor? I carefully chose companies from a variety of sizes to help analyze this. Among the companies that I chose, I predicted that my portfolio would increase minimally over the last few weeks because of the diversification of my portfolio.

            I made the choice to only watch my stocks over the course of the last few weeks to closely monitor the fluctuations of prices instead of focusing on buying and selling. In these few weeks, I noticed that the majority of stock prices decrease a little. Although none of my stocks had decreased with drastic values, I noticed a decrease in over half of my companies (five out of 8). Nordstrom, Gap, Tyson, General Motors, and Amazon all decreased in stock value by less than ten percent. I found it interesting that the biggest decreases were with Gap ($24.87 to $22.52) and Nordstrom ($45.35 to $41.23) because of the similarities with products and industries. I was extremely surprised to see my prediction go in the opposite direction, and that I had lost money investing (less than $4,000 with commission fees). I want to research this more to see if the decline may have something to do with the time of the year or other external factors. However, my biggest investment—Berkshire Hathaway—had steadily increased minimally (from 254,151 to 255,000). This increase was the smallest increase in the companies and I found this interesting as it was the largest investment I made. Walt Disney and Netflix also increased by less than 2 percent. I decided that I was not going to sell or buy any stocks during the last few weeks to make sure I was devoting my focus to monitoring my stocks. Especially because this is my first experience investing in stock, I wanted to stay focused on learning more about the companies I chose to invest in. My goal for the next few weeks in to make at least one additional buy and possibly sell some stock, but to continue a conservative investment approach.