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How much of your portfolio is in cash?


ourkid8

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We have all heard about the CRM, LULU and of a couple crazy IPO's but, other than that, I see fear everywhere, not greed. It is not hard to find many really cheap stocks today.

 

Cardboard

 

Cardboard, I agree with you.

 

People who are in mostly cash, what do you think its going to happen next? MSFT & CSCO are already trading less than 10 times earnings before adjusting for cash on their balance sheet.. What are your return expectations? And when are you planning to deploy? how about opportunity cost of being in cash?

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We have all heard about the CRM, LULU and of a couple crazy IPO's but, other than that, I see fear everywhere, not greed. It is not hard to find many really cheap stocks today.

 

Cardboard

 

Cardboard, I agree with you.

 

People who are in mostly cash, what do you think its going to happen next? MSFT & CSCO are already trading less than 10 times earnings before adjusting for cash on their balance sheet.. What are your return expectations? And when are you planning to deploy? how about opportunity cost of being in cash?

 

I cannot speak for anyone else with a large cash position, but I do expect a rally, and I plan to be heavily invested in the coming weeks. I guess part of my hesitation has to do with timing and waiting out some more difficult pushes as they relate to Europe.

 

Also, look at the 1 month bill: the opportunity cost of holding cash just turned negative =)

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Guest Hester

Other than making a negative macro call, what is making so many of you guys so negative here? Please give me an example of a well known, well established company out there that is trading at nose bleed valuations?

 

We have all heard about the CRM, LULU and of a couple crazy IPO's but, other than that, I see fear everywhere, not greed. It is not hard to find many really cheap stocks today.

 

Cardboard

 

Agreed

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matjone and Hester,

 

Why don't you start by looking at the 30 components of the Dow? Once you realize that many of the prime companies in the U.S. trade at well below normal valuations or between 7 and 10 times earnings then maybe that we will talk about cheaper, but lesser known companies.

 

Cardboard

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Guest Hester

matjone and Hester,

 

Why don't you start by looking at the 30 components of the Dow? Once you realize that many of the prime companies in the U.S. trade at well below normal valuations or between 7 and 10 times earnings then maybe that we will talk about cheaper, but lesser known companies.

 

Cardboard

 

Lol, I was trying to agree with you. Hence my use of the word "agreed."

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matjone and Hester,

 

Why don't you start by looking at the 30 components of the Dow? Once you realize that many of the prime companies in the U.S. trade at well below normal valuations or between 7 and 10 times earnings then maybe that we will talk about cheaper, but lesser known companies.

 

Yia Yahoo ...

        Price   P/E    Yield    P/B     P/S
TRV 	56.68 	7.75 	2.80 	0.95 	0.95  	
HPQ 	34.90 	8.58 	1.40 	1.81 	0.57 	 	
T 	30.44 	8.68 	5.50 	1.62 	1.46 	 	
JPM 	39.49 	8.77 	2.40 	0.92 	1.78 	 	
CVX 	97.90  	9.50 	3.10 	1.81 	0.99 	 	
MSFT 	24.30 	9.65 	2.60 	3.88 	3.03 	 	
INTC 	21.20  	9.91 	3.30 	2.45 	2.49 	 	

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My apologies Hester... I thought you were agreeing with matjone.

 

Cardboard

 

Oh, i wasn't disagreeing that there are things that look cheap. I bought some Wmt this week. I have also thought about buying some of the tech stocks that you are probably talking about.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest longinvestor

30%

Willing to take some opportunity cost being out of my concentrated portfolio of 3.

 

Rationale?

 

Gut thing, one statement Prem made, "be very afraid...or careful" a couple of years ago, rings loudest in my head

 

My shortlist

Italy, Spain go Greek

Terrorist attack

Election delivers spook by divisiveness

Middle-class take to street, Dr Brzinski (sp) prediction

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I'm 100% invested right now, and plowing new cash in as it comes in because there are at least 3 businesses that I like that are cheap (two of them being really cheap).

 

I have no idea where macro will go, what matters to me is that whatever I'm buying is cheap and has good downside protection.

 

Right now I feel more scared of letting some fat pitches pass and missing good opportunities than of seeing my portfolio go down for a while (I'm not planning to sell anytime soon, and most of the corps I invest in have little debt and have shown that they allocates capital very well in downturns, so they should come out strong on the other side).

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Who has adjusted their cash position with recent debt ceiling/budget problem?

 

How much your portfolio is cash now?

 

I am still ~ 40%, because of cash added to be invested over the last several months-I am waiting for better pricing on stuff I am watching (FFH, BRK/B, L, WB.TO, BMO, FTR)

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I'm about 15% in cash right now.  I'm also worried about the macro environment so most of my recent equity investments have been in special situations.   

 

Also, this is my first post here so...

Hi everyone!  I look forward to participating in forum discussions and hope that the community can all prosper together :)

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I'm about 15% in cash right now.  I'm also worried about the macro environment so most of my recent equity investments have been in special situations.   

 

Also, this is my first post here so...

Hi everyone!  I look forward to participating in forum discussions and hope that the community can all prosper together :)

 

Welcome to the forum! Hope you have a pleasant stay  :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

60% :D

 

I know, I'm mad.

I have a small portfolio tho and just started a year ago.

 

20% now. Wont be long before I put everything in it seems, although I told myself I would always keep at least 5-10% in cash. More than 50% of my portfolio is in BRK. I'll let Buffett keep the cash buffer, I'm confident he knows what to do with it.  :)

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I just put all my cash to work and bought a position yesterday in Berkshire, it's way to cheap to ignore.  I now have 0% of my portfolio in cash...

 

I am at about 5.39% and wish I had more!!! I am just waiting on the right opportunity...............

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I am sitting at about 65% cash; 35% stocks (mostly BRK and also smaller positions in MSFT, ABT, BMO, TEVA, GLW, GVC). Over the past couple of months I have gotten more defensive.

 

It would not surprise me to see the S&P fall below 1,000. I will continue to buy more should the market go lower. For every 1,000 point drop in S&P I will invest about 25% of cash. Or if a company like BRK gets crazy cheap I likely will get more aggressive regardless of general market levels. If we do have a big sell off (i.e. S&P below 1,000) then I also will look to shift a little from defensive positions (like ABT) to more aggressive positions (perhaps forestry stocks like WFT or CFP).

 

Should markets not fall that much I will sit on cash. Should things get ugly I will be in decent shape to buy on the cheap. My guess is things will continue to stay pretty volatile the next few months unless we get an external shock of some sort.

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I don't see owner management companies like BRK with current low valuations drop as much as the market. Downside for these companies seems relatively low compared to the broad market and upside potential is much much higher. This is why I don't believe very large cash positions are justified at the moment. If (and that is a big if) the market plummets 15-30% from here, I would probably drop a portion of BRK, FFH and move to some tech and pure financials if they get hit substantially.

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