Telstra shares hit an all time high of $9.20 in February 1999. I know this for certain because at the time I had 600 shares in the company from the original T1 float, and had temporarily moved to Canberra for a few months in late January 1999 – it was a moment I could well remember because of my new adventure.
I bought another 400 shares for $7.20 in the T2 Telstra float later in 1999.
I think I more or less broke even when I sold my Telstra shares in late 2002, but only because I counted dividend income towards what I had gotten out of my investment.
It left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth really, and I have avoided Telstra shares since then, even though I am a pretty loyal Telstra customer.
Around that time, I bought 500 Coles Myer shares, because at that time, anyone who had 500 Coles Myer shares got a shareholder discount card. Oh those were the days!
Sadly, I was unable to get much value out of the Coles Myer shares for too long because the Coles supermarket at Highpoint West closed down in 2000.
I guess like a lot of newish shareholders, the Telstra float and the Coles Myer shareholder discount card looked pretty appealing, but did not ultimately benefit me or any other likeminded investors in the long run.
I hardly think of that epoch in my share portfolio anymore.
Nor do I really own many shares which are actual businesses listed on the ASX anymore. Most of my portfolio is listed investment companies, real estate trusts, exchange traded funds and conglomerates (ie Washington Soul H Pattison). The one current exception is Treasury Wine Estate, and readers of this blog would know very well why I own those shares.
I am thinking of changing my ongoing investment strategy going forward however.
I am retired now, and have plenty of spare time to spend attending corporate AGMs, alongside all the other grey retail investors. This past month or so, being AGM season, I joyously attended the Treasury AGM (I urge all my friends to become shareholders of this company) and was pleasantly surprised as my mother’s proxy with the post meeting catering at Insignia Financial.
I’m curious as to what other company AGMs might be well catered, demanding my attention and attendance in future.
And so I am thinking about a new strategy in my future investing. I am seriously considering investing my dividend income (approximately $20k per annum) in ASX Top 100 companies based in Melbourne.
There are, aside from Treasury Wine, about 30 of these companies. These include BHP, Rio Tinto, NAB, ANZ, Coles (sans Myer these days), Telstra, CSL, The Lottery Corporation (NB I do buy the odd ticket to the megadraws, but not all that often), Transurban, and Australian Financial Investment Corporation.
So… if I were to buy a marketable parcel in each of the 30 (ie about $500), I could own a shareholding in each of those in time for the next AGM season, at which time I could attend all the AGMs and discover what the catering is like.
I think this is as valid an investment strategy as any, and could be quite amusing.
Lost For Words! 