I want out of investing - options

[coc]

Thanks for elaborating Rod. Seems sensible.

What I'm about to say is probably useless to you given that you like broad diversification, but here goes:

In recent years I've been owning fewer and fewer stocks to the point where I now will usually own only three or four. I made a conscious decision to focus only on "no-brainer" ideas. The kind of idea that I might find only once every three or four years. By "no-brainer" I mean a stock that is a great company or very solid infrastructure like asset that is selling for one-third or less of my estimate of intrinsic value. Waiting for no-brainers means letting a bunch of good ideas go by. When I find the no-brainer idea I will put 30% or more into it. The fact that the undervaluation is so extreme means I can hold it for many years and make high returns the whole way. I usually think in terms of making 10x in 10 years. A single idea like that can replace 10 or 15 more typical value ideas because I'm putting maybe 3x more money into and holding it 5x longer. So I've found it to be a huge time saver on research. It's also more fun in my opinion to focus on only your best ideas and hold them long term. So far, it's working very well.

Out of curiosity, what ideas have fallen into this net since you switched? How long has it been? No need to give current ideas if you don’t want to share them, older ones are fine.

I've been investing in stocks for 25 years, usually owning 5 to 7 at any one time. This level of concentration was not by design, but by having a pretty high bar for what I would invest in, usually 1 or 2 simple ideas per year would pass the hurdle. I focused almost entirely on small and obscure Canadian stocks, often special situations. My performance during that time was at or close to 25% per year, with a success rate of about 85% on the ideas I bet on. I can't remember if that ridiculous performance number includes leverage because I did leverage up after the two crashes in 2000 and 2008. Most of the time I was debt free. I don't pretend to be as good as those numbers suggest. I just think the area I was prospecting in--small and obscure Canadian stocks--has been able to offer up just enough really easy deals over the time I've been looking that I could get a good one once or twice a year if I searched enough.

I'm sure I could have just kept doing that, but about 3 years ago I decided to reduce the amount of time I was devoting to stock research. It struck me that over the 25 years I've been doing it, I have identified about 7 or 8 "no-brainer" ideas (one every 3 or 4 years) that I would put 20% into. All of them put up excellent 10 year+ records after that, whether I kept them that long or not, often I did keep them. More "average" ideas I would put in 10 or 15%. I realized that if I had simply stuck to those 7 or 8 "no-brainers" ignoring everything else, and put maybe 30% into them when I found them and held on, I would have done about as well or better than I did investing in the much larger number of "average" ideas I got into. So, in the interest of reducing time spent I've been experimenting with high-grading my ideas to invest in only the no-brainer ones over the last 3 years. Performance during this three year period has been about 25% per year.

My biggest holding by far right now is Dream Unlimited (DRM-T), a diversified real estate company. I bought it at various prices starting around 3 years ago. I think it's worth more than $20, currently trades close to $12, was $7 earlier this year. My average price is about $8. I expect to hold this one for at least another 7 years to make my total holding time 10 years or more. This one big, long term investment will probably replace 10 or 15 more average deals I could have done, so that is where the big time savings will come from.

[no_free_lunch]

I put some funds (maybe 5%) into beutel goodman small cap (BTG104), series F.  It has an expense ratio of 1.2% which is obviously high but much lower than competitors.  If you look at their track record they have beaten the markets going back 5/10/20 years even with expenses considered.  I am not sure it is so much that they are superior stock pickers, I think it is that they avoided energy / materials.  I suspect this is the ballpark natural result if you invest in non fraudulent canadian companies and further reduce the energy/materials exposure.

Otherwise I have found a couple investments.  This was mostly the result of scanning the investments these various funds hold.  So as usual I am hedging and will have to continue stock picking with a portion of my funds.

[CorpRaider]

You should probably just DCA into world index funds and/or BRK. 

You guys can get some not horrible options in Canada.

[vinod1]

I find it increasingly difficult / impossible to run my portfolio.  It is simply too time consuming to research individual stocks given how diversified I like to be.  I am looking for options.   I am a Canadian investor.

I know i should buy ETFs but I just don't like how popular they are.  I feel that mutual funds are my best option.  I am hoping someone can provide some good suggestions.   Mawer and Beutel Goodman look interesting.  Are there any other names people like?

I came the other way around. Moved from indexing (between 2001 to 2005) to active investing (from 2006 onwards). I would suggest reading The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein. Of all the books it has the most intellectually honest case for indexing.

It has the answers you are looking for and it provides a detailed rationale for that approach. The main thing is you need to buy into that approach and it should make sense to you. Otherwise, something might cause you to change the strategy probably at the wrong time.

Even if you do not go with indexing, atleast you would have thought through the issues presented and take a different approach if that is what you want to do.

Vinod