About Me (Marc)
I’m a Canadian guy who retired at the age of 48 after spending 21 years working for the Federal Government. Investing is one of my hobbies. It’s something I love doing and I spend a lot of time reading, researching, and keeping on top of trends. I’m really lucky that this hobby has positioned me to retire early and spend time enjoying my other hobbies, which include traveling, hiking, gardening, and watch-collecting.
I have a varied educational and professional background, which makes me a generalist – something I think is a strength when it comes to investing and financial decision-making. I have an undergraduate degree in Economics, which is probably my biggest asset. I also have a college diploma in mechanical engineering and professional experience working in statistics, data management, and emergency management.
My Evolution as an Investor
Investing has always been a hobby. I’ve always been good at saving money but it’s only in the last 15 years that I’ve really become good at investing it. In my earlier years, I either over-performed or underperformed significantly. In my best year of investing, I made an impressive 400% return. That was followed shortly thereafter by a shocking (to me) equivalent loss. It was an expensive way to learn about luck and arrogance.
This rollercoaster experience led me to a more analytic approach to investing. No more winging stock picks for me! No more trying to hit it out of the park. Only base hits, no more strikeouts. Slowly and surely. The goal now is to beat the market by 1 to 3 percentage points, not more and not less. Only in special situations will I try and reach for more.
About the Blog
My more analytic approach included spending a lot of time reading books and watching media by experts in the field of investing. It also included writing down my ideas and sharing them with my investor friends. These emails to friends eventually morphed into an informal monthly Newsletter, which I started sharing with friends, family, and eventually, anyone who asked to be on the list. To better meet the needs of my family, friends, and the growing list of email contacts, my Newsletter has evolved into this blog. We’ll see how this goes but I’m looking forward to having some fun with it!
I plan to use the flexibility of this new blog format to write about other related topics, such as decision-making for financial independence. Investing is only one part of the big picture. I have always felt that although good investing is important, it’s not the ‘secret sauce‘. Living below your means and making strategic life decisions is just as (and perhaps more) important when it comes to early retirement.
About my Portfolio
Over the years, I have provided glimpses of my portfolio in my monthly Newsletter and I have always referred to it as ‘the hobby portfolio‘. The reason for this is that most of my wealth (85%) is managed by a Wealth Manager at TD. The remainder (15%) I manage as a hobby portfolio.
There are many reasons for this setup. First and foremost, managing my entire nest egg would mean needing to do boring things like developing tax strategies, managing my monthly disbursements, doing income forecasting, planning tax selling, etc. If I had to do all these things, I would be moving away from pure investing and it would no longer be fun or feel like a hobby… it would feel like a job. Yuck! So my solution was to portion out 15% of my nest egg to solely concentrate on investing without the burden of the boring stuff.
To be clear, the hobby portfolio is real. It has six-figure money in it, so it’s not ‘play-money’. People ask if I would manage my entire nest egg the same way I manage the hobby portfolio. The answer, for the most part, is yes. My investments would of course be slightly different, as I would need to invest with dividends and tax strategies in mind. I would likely also be slightly more conservative. The hobby portfolio will now be permanently posted on this site so that those of you who are interested can follow its performance, good or bad. As with my previous newsletters, I will continue to post information about my buys, sells, and year-to-date performance against the S&P 500.
Disclaimer
I’m not a financial advisor. I write this blog to share my thoughts and ideas about investing, market trends, performance, and saving money. Please don’t take my specific stock picks as advice for your own portfolio. The way in which each position fits in a particular portfolio is complicated and unique, so what makes sense for me may not make sense for you. Please consult an advisor for targeted, individual advice… and don’t get mad at me if my stock picks don’t work 😉
Money with Marc 