No. of Recommendations: 10
Back "in the day" on TMF, I would occasionally post my current portfolio. I am not much of a fund/ETF kind of guy (I use them for specific purposes, but the vast majority of my portfolio has always been stocks chosen by me for one reason or another). The other idiosyncrasy is that I tend to hold a large number of issues - because I don't hold many funds, I more or less create my own.
Anyhow, currently, over half my holdings are foreign, many held as ADR's, but also some (as indicated by the list) in terms of foreign currency. The following is my top 10 holdings (out of about 60) comprising 52% of my equities which highlights some of the themes I am following:
Symbol Company Country Currency % of total equities
asx:RIO Rio Tinto Fpo Australia AUD 11.77%
swx:NESN Nestle Switzerland CHF 8.09%
BRK.a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. US USD 7.99%
GOOGL Alphabet Inc. US USD 6.28%
VWO Vanguard Ftse Emerging Markets China etc. USD 4.30%
SAN Banco Santander, S.A. Sponsored Spain USD 3.23%
USB U.S. Bancorp US USD 2.83%
SIEGY Siemens Ag Germany USD 2.82%
HUBB Hubbell Inc US USD 2.48%
EMR Emerson Electric Company US USD 2.36%
My top holding is an Australian miner. Along with lesser amounts of shares in other major foreign mineral (and precious metal) miners, I believe this offers a significant hedge against inflation. It is also a non-US currency hedge.
The Nestle position is simply to have my holding of Swiss francs earn their living. Holdings in other Swiss stocks (not in the "top 10") such as ABB mesh with my grouping of electrical infrastructure stocks (three of which form the last three issues of my "top 10" above). It is my belief that this group will benefit from the conflation of EV's, AI, cryptocurrencies and potential rebuilding of Ukraine and Gaza.
My Berkshire Hathaway holding has recently been halved, but I have recently added positions of the five Japanese companies owned by Berkshire which total at about 4.5%, so while I guess you could say Berkshire and its derivatives would be the top holding, these five stocks (when added to my other Japanese holdings) are both a bet on the Japanese economy and yet another hedge against a drop in the US dollar.
Banco Santander has tripled since I acquired it after evaluating that it was being punished irrationally because it was headquartered in Spain. USB has done well and both are joined by Bank of Nova Scotia, Westpac (Australia) and a bit of Citi (none of which made the "Top 10" list).
Another note: Danaher (DHR) and its derivative spin-offs would put it at position #5 at 3.5% if they were included as a lump.
Anyhow, this is more fun than holding three index funds and rebalencing once a year :-)
Jeff
