Forum Topics How closely does your Strawman portfolio resemble your real life portfolio?
Bear77
4 years ago

I manage 4 portfolios in the real world, and all are different, although three of them have plenty of cross-overs (holdings across multiple portfolios).  The fourth portfolio is a small 3-stock portfolio (MGF, MHH & FGX) that I manage for my son and daughter.  They have paid for those shares with their own money, but it's in my name for tax and accounting purposes at this stage.  My eldest is turning 18 this year, so I will likely transfer that portfolio into her name later this year, or at least her half of it.  

Most of my real life positions across those 4 portfolios are also on my Strawman.com scorecard, but not all, and the weightings are not the same.  Examples of positions I hold in real life that are NOT on my Strawman.com scorecard include Codan (CDA), bought at MUCH cheaper prices before I joined Strawman.com, Service Stream (SSM, bought recently after a big share price fall related to BSA gaining the main metro NBN contracts in NSW and Victoria, that one is just a short term trade based on their results and outlook being better than the market expects, and I just haven't gotten around to adding them to my Strawman.com scorecard yet), Wesfarmers (WES, don't look cheap enough to add here, I bought them at much lower levels), GOR, RMS and QAU.  Those last 3, being two smaller gold producers and a currency hedged gold ETF, are in my SMSF, which I don't fiddle with very often.

Conversely, there are plenty of positions on my Strawman.com scorecard that I do NOT currently hold in real life, but would like to if I had more funds to invest, including PME, NXL, XRO, TNT, XRF, MX1, AD8, MEP, MLD, GNG, CMM, RUL and ALK.  I have held most of those previously but have since sold out to buy shares in other companies.

I think it would be hard to closely replicate one of my real life portfolios here on Strawman.com, mostly because I always use limit orders and only buy and sell at prices I am happy with, not closing day prices, but also because Strawman.com does not allow for SPPs (share purchase plans), REOs (retail entitlement offers), or even all-cash settlement of dividends, distributions and capital returns.  Also, ETFs are not included here - and while I only currently hold one ETF (QAU), I do also hold others at various times.  Don't get me wrong - I think this site is very valuable, and I like it a lot, however I don't think it's designed for replicating real life portfolios closely.  For that I would use Sharesight.com.  (And I do.)

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Dominator
4 years ago

Portfolios are similar but not the same. Weighting is different.  However, my weighting on Strawman probably indicates my conviction.

I might have a few extras in my Strawman portfolio that I am watching or want to do further research on before buying in my real porfolio.

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umop3pisdn
4 years ago

Has anyone decided to pick one of or part of their real life portfolio and reflected it exactly on this website?

Has anyone selected someone who is successful on this website and mirrored that person's Strawman portfolio with real life dollars?

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Vandelay
4 years ago

My holdings are the same as my holdings in real life. The weightings and $ values are different for obvious reasons. My thoughts on copying another users strawman portfolio are as our wise leader Andrew has said previously. You can borrow ideas but you cant borrow conviction.

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umop3pisdn
4 years ago

@Vandelay obvious because of capital required? Also, individuals straws on here provide a healthy insight in to a user's investment thesis and ideas. The annualised percentage return of the same user is an indication of how trustworthy those thesis are. Doesn't that provide the conviction to follow them exactly? Having the required capital to follow a user exactly is prohibitive, however if one used percentages of portfolios, would it be viable? I'm interested to hear if anyone has tried this?

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umop3pisdn
4 years ago

@Carbonite What about buying only the newest listed stocks and starting (or converting) your portfolio with each newly listed stock? I'm not exactly sure how a stock is listed. Does it only have to do with activity of that stock? Accumulation of straws/buys/follows of the stock? If so, isn't the stock re-entering the index indicative of perceived positive price movement?

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Vandelay
4 years ago

Yes just because in real life capital is added to my portfolio regularly. I agree the people and straws are very insightful. And yes some theoretical returns are very impressive. All i mean by you cant borrow conviction is of course you can copy blindly. But forming your own conviction is how you can stomach the market and not act irrationally when things dont go your way. Im sure following someone else can produce good returns. There are plenty of LIC's in the market run by industry professionals that are for this very thing.

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AlphaAngle
4 years ago

I do but the weightings vary. The order from largest holding to smallest however is roughly correct. Obviously this doesn't include overseas stocks or investments not able to be reflected on the platform. Generally my entry prices are a little better than Strawman given the ability to trade not just on the closing price.

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