As regular readers of this blog know, I’m generally of the opinion that it’s a mistake to pick individual stocks rather than use low-cost, diversified index funds (or ETFs). That said, there are a few exceptions. This week, Rob Berger of Dough Roller made a good case for one of them:
- Why Passive Investors Should Become Stock Pickers from Dough Roller
Investing Articles
- Simple Investing Solutions from White Coat Investor
- For UK investors: Should I Dump My Government Bond Funds? from Monevator
- Is the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate Obsolete? from Darrow Kirkpatrick
- Retirement Planning: Fixed Periods or Survival Probabilities? from Wade Pfau
- Categorizing ETFs from Rick Ferri
- Goldman Sachs Thinks My Clients Are Muppets from Allan Roth
- Lump-Sum Pension Cash-Outs: A Trap for the Unwary? from Steve Vernon
Other Money-Related Articles
- More Men Choosing Fatherhood Over Careers from Consumerism Commentary
- ING Now Has Mobile Deposit from PT Money
- Using BillGuard to Protect Against Fraudulent Charges from Five Cent Nickel
- How to Win a House Bidding War from Money Smarts Blog
Thanks for reading!
Hi. I'm Mike Piper, the author of this blog. I'm a CPA and the author of several personal finance books. The point of this blog is to show that investing doesn't have to be complicated. 
My favourite case for investing in individual stocks is because it’s a fun challenge. If you do it with your eyes wide open, knowing the research says you’ll likely lose — but you might win — I think that’s very different from following the hype from hot fund managers, or day trading indices or what have you.
Thanks for the link today Mike! A rare week when you’re a bit too US focussed for me to reciprocate, but I may do a UK take on the multiple fund managers article (with UK/European laws) and link to yours from that (for a US perspective) at some point.
I proved a few weeks ago I should not pick stocks. :O) Actually, a friend recommended some OTC stocks. It wasn’t a huge amount of $, so really looked at it like I was having some fun. I even looked at what my return would be if the stocks went to 0 and said, why not.
Well, one has almost gone to 0 and another is well on the way. Fun over. :O) I also bought a few share of Apple. Going to a 1000, right?!? If you want to ruin a stock, just ask me to buy it. :O)
Anyway, I didn’t go read the article, but I will.
cd :O)
Bah – what does Rob know?
I’ve always thought it would be interesting to try to outperform the market, but I’ve never really tried so I guess I’m not that interested.
I can “make” more money by cutting investment costs than I can by spending lots of time picking stocks (assuming I was successful). I’d rather spend that time making money with my side businesses – or watching tv.
Good list of articles. I shall check on them later today. Thanks for sharing!
Good list, I think Rob is a bit off though. He is already holding those stocks if he has Vanguard Total Market. In fact, the stocks he listed make up 6.87% of Vanguard’s holdings, see my comment on his article for more info..
My comments don’t seem to be showing up
Harry,
Of course there’s overlap when compared to a total market fund.
The point isn’t additional diversification. The point is improved tax efficiency.