Friday, January 29, 2016

More from Phil Fisher on diversification

From Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits and Other Writings:
Usually a very long list of securities is not a sign of the brilliant investor, but of one who is unsure of himself. If the investor owns stock in so many companies that he cannot keep in touch with their managements directly or indirectly, he is rather sure to end up in worse shape than if he had owned stock in too few companies. An investor should always realize that some mistakes are going to be made and that he should have sufficient diversification so that an occasional mistake will not prove crippling. However, beyond this point he should take extreme care to own not the most, but the best. In the field of common stocks, a little bit of a great many can never be more than a poor substitute for a few of the outstanding.