Navigation Bar Details

"The rules of navigation never navigated a ship;
the rules of architecture never built a house."

- Thomas Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man

I've decided to explain my left nav bar, partly because I've never done so and partly because it answers some old questions posed in a couple of reader comments. Here is a brief description of each section:

Blog Archive: Standard blogger post archive.

Topics: Standard blogger listing of my labeled posts.

My Core Holdings: These are stock holdings where I feel comfortable buying a significant amount and holding for a long period of time. They tend to be large-cap, dividend paying companies and in many cases, I will probably hold them for the rest of my life. I am basically a diversification freak so each of these holdings are almost without exception about 1% to 2% of my total portfolio of assets. I am well aware that there are people who can persuasively argue that such a level of diversification is either totally overkill or hopelessly inadequate. Nonetheless, I have been investing in individual stocks for almost 20 years and this is the level of diversification with which I've grown to be comfortable. Always make sure you respect your own risk tolerance and other constraints or you will regret it.

I also own mutual funds, and I have another post where I detail my mutual fund holdings. The reason I don't list my mutual funds on the nav bar is simply because I have not found a suitable widget for listing mutual funds. (Suggestion are welcome!)

My Smaller Holdings: These are smaller equity holdings that I've acquired for one reason or another. They are not trading positions. (I haven't been involved in trading for quite a number of years.) They are generally smaller cap and more risky ventures than more core holdings. All together, my smaller individual holdings comprise about 5% of my total portfolio of assets. This category is probably what some people call their "play money" or "throw-away money". However, I do not "play" with my money. I don't have these investments for excitement or experimentation. The objective is to make money. Because they are higher risk positions, I use a special broker so that the commission is still reasonable relative to the small position size.

Resources I Use: These are excellent financial and information resources.

Blogs I Read: Please take the heading at face value: blogs I read. Just because a blog is on the list does not mean I always agree with the content, or that it has a reciprocal link to my site. And it is not intended to be a "best of" list, as I don't even spend enough time on the web to ferret out all the interesting blogs. The common denominator is that they are all blogs that I continue to read, and I read each one for different reasons.

Places I Vacation: I'm actually not sure I why I have this section in the nav bar! It doesn't really have much to do with personal finance. Perhaps it's just a little reminder of something to look forward to while I'm editing the site. Maybe I will remove this section after a while if it seems like it is just adding clutter.

Finally, I need to point out that nothing on the nav bar should be considered a recommendation of any kind. I am not recommending that anyone purchase any of these stocks, vacation at any of those locations, or read any of the linked resources and blogs. The lists are simply a declaration of my personal situation and nothing else.