Conventional wisdom states that your portfolio should be diversified, with no one stock or sector occupying more than 20 percent of your portfolio. The Smoking Duck prefers a slightly scaled back version, suggesting that no one stock or sector occupy more than 15 percent. This allows you the flexibility to have 5 or 6 core holdings in your portfolio, while still leaving room for more speculative stocks if you are looking to add some risk.

The recommendations for core holdings in The Smoking Duck portfolio will be for stocks that fill the following criteria:

  • They can be bought and held onto for an extended period of time.
  • They offer dividends to help grow your portfolio while you're holding onto those stocks.
  • They typically run under 35 dollars a share so you can own more than a couple of shares and still have room in your portfolio for more than one stock.

The Smoking Duck also occasionally recommends what it considers a speculative stock. The recommendations for speculative holdings will be for stocks that fill the following criteria:

  • These stocks have the potential for rapid growth, but they are also more volatile, which means they could go down as much as they could go up.
  • Their growth possibilities likely means the stock may not pay any dividends.
  • These stocks, too, will typically run under 35 dollars.

When recommendations are made for The Smoking Duck portfolio, they will be identified as either core holdings or speculative. This will save you time if you wish to avoid speculative trades. Results of all trades made for The Smoking Duck portfolio will appear in The Tracker the following month’s newsletter.