A few years ago, during the years of Plague and the isolation that ensued, a close friend of mine emailed me with the suggestion that I don’t need to bother with shares. Unlike most people, he pointed out, I belong to a defined benefit superannuation fund with a generous pension on offer, and in which I have huge equity.
He did have a good point – the actuarial value of my current pension is almost double that of my house, and I am getting a large payroll each fortnight than I did whilst working for the Man (lower tax and no 10% gross voluntary contribution to my super fund will do that) .
But I am so used to having a share portfolio over the past 28 1/2 years that I do not ever see myself divesting myself of shares.
However, I think I have made it fairly clear over the five or so years I have had this blog that whilst I enjoy owning a share portfolio, I am not that enamoured of individual stocks.
Most of my portfolio is held in ETFs, Listed Investment Companies, Real Estate Trusts, and Conglomerates. This way, I diversify my holdings and minimise my risk. After all, I have made some fairly poor decisions in stock picking in the past.
The main exception to that is Treasury Wine Estates, for obvious reasons.
This investment position continues with my latest purchase, 100 shares in Wesfarmers (formerly known as the Westralian Farmers Cooperative).
Wesfarmers owns a very diversified portfolio of businesses, most famously Officeworks, Kmart, Target (which I pronounce in the French way because I am facetious), and Bunnings. But it also stays true to its farmer coop roots with a fertiliser business, and various other assorted ventures.
It even currently is the owner of the Soul Pattison chemist chain, which used to be owned by (and the original core business of) Washington Soul H Pattison, which now, incidentally, is my largest shareholding.
Just like the latter, Wesfarmers has very right to call itself a conglomerate.
At $71.50 per share, it looked a little expensive according to the current broker consensus. But, as the Chinese say about the best time for planting a tree (either today or 20 years ago), the best time to buy shares is either right now or 20 years ago. I’m planning to gradually build up my Wesfarmers share holding, just like I have my Soul Pattison (sans pharmacy) shareholding.
Sadly, the AGM is in Perth each year, so I fear that I will not be checking out their corporate catering as I do when I attend company meetings in Melbourne.
Lost For Words! 