Which stocks would you hold for 30 years?

Quote from Cutten:
04-21-09

I thought this would be an interesting exercise to compare the price of these stocks at this post time, and look at where they are now. This could give good insight into the merits of buy & hold, and give an idea how uncertainty affects investment planning.

BBY - from 55.5 then to 38.6 today (-30%)
ERTS - 59 to 17.7 (-70%)
GOOG - 594 to 380 (-36%)
CME - 629 to 223 (-65%)
BAC - 52.7 to 8.1 (-85%)

Return (dividends excluded) = -57%

Not trying to pick on this poster at all, but I wonder how many people back in October 06 thought that this portfolio could fall by 57% (actually the max drawdown was even bigger if we measured to the lows 6 weeks ago).
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Interesting thread.
In the same period SPY was roughly -36%. (dividends excluded)
What about emerging markets for the long haul?
To quote Jim Rogers “If the 19th century belonged to Britain, and the 20th century to the United States then the 21st century will surely belong to China."
For example, getting into a pullback on an emerging markets ETF like EEM (mkt cap 21B). In this same 18 month period (oct 2 2006 till apr 21 2009) your nest egg would have been -15%, and if you include the last few weeks run up you are roughly square. If you bought in just 2 months ago from today your up +40%...lol.

A variation on this theme would be to buy the pullbacks in the worlds largest mining company (BHP - mkt cap 151B), in that this stock takes advantage of emerging market growth that requires base metals etc. to underwrite that expansion (put the 5 year charts of EEM and BHP side by side to see what I mean). In USD terms the stock is up 27% in the above mentioned period. If you look around, surely you could compile a list of stocks that fit this mould.
 
It is a fun question. However, I want to add, respectfully, that I think you are misguided to do this. Keep control of your stuff. Things happen to companies. I would not have wanted to be screwing around finding and unloading my stock certificates for Enron or Bear Stearns. There are bumps in the road that you can sit through with your long time horizon, but also there are just plain bad, bad news that indicate you have to get out now.

There are plenty of good companies on your list.

I would go for the following, all of which pay nice divvies:

XOM or CVX or COP or TOT
AFL or CB
CLX or PG
ADM
UTX

The US will become far less important in the world in the next 30 yrs. And at this point, I would not know what foreign stock to pick, so other than TOT, I have chosen domestic stocks. In choosing US stocks, I would stick to basic themes that aren't likely to be affected by the changing power structure in the world.

There are very few things the US sells. Among them are food and weapons. Thus ADM, and UTX. While UTX is really only a peripheral play on weapons, I don't know of any other defense-oriented company I would be willing to buy and forget for 30 years.

I figure there will always be insurance and consumer staples. Thus AFL, CLX, CB, PG.

Finally, I believe oil will become precious again. It will be very hard for the world to adopt alternative sources of energy. They will probably suck the last drop of oil off this planet in about 30 years. Who knows how many zillion bucks a barrel will cost then. Thus, big oil.

There is probably some bank I should be choosing, but I sure don't know what it ought to be.

Hell, I sometimes can't even find stuff I put away 30 minutes ago--not to speak of 30 years. I can just imagine my family trying to scrounge around looking for stock certificates while I am in the home drooling on myself :)
 
Quote from drcha:

It is a fun question. However, I want to add, respectfully, that I think you are misguided to do this. Keep control of your stuff. Things happen to companies. I would not have wanted to be screwing around finding and unloading my stock certificates for Enron or Bear Stearns. There are bumps in the road that you can sit through with your long time horizon, but also there are just plain bad, bad news that indicate you have to get out now.

There are plenty of good companies on your list.

I would go for the following, all of which pay nice divvies:

XOM or CVX or COP or TOT
AFL or CB
CLX or PG
ADM
UTX

The US will become far less important in the world in the next 30 yrs. And at this point, I would not know what foreign stock to pick, so other than TOT, I have chosen domestic stocks. In choosing US stocks, I would stick to basic themes that aren't likely to be affected by the changing power structure in the world.

There are very few things the US sells. Among them are food and weapons. Thus ADM, and UTX. While UTX is really only a peripheral play on weapons, I don't know of any other defense-oriented company I would be willing to buy and forget for 30 years.

I figure there will always be insurance and consumer staples. Thus AFL, CLX, CB, PG.

Finally, I believe oil will become precious again. It will be very hard for the world to adopt alternative sources of energy. They will probably suck the last drop of oil off this planet in about 30 years. Who knows how many zillion bucks a barrel will cost then. Thus, big oil.

There is probably some bank I should be choosing, but I sure don't know what it ought to be.

Hell, I sometimes can't even find stuff I put away 30 minutes ago--not to speak of 30 years. I can just imagine my family trying to scrounge around looking for stock certificates while I am in the home drooling on myself :)
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Good man, AFL. No one ever bothers to look at the chart from 0.07 to $37 in the last 35 years. But whatever. This is my family's crown jewel, and it still pays off $7k bought in 1978. Not that I think that kind of performance will continue, but I had this as a screaming buy at $22 in covestor.com.
 
Quote from eagle488:



The reason why I would take physical delivery is so that it wont be easy to cash the shares out.
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I guess I don't see the logic here.

You are intentionally trying to reduce your ability to be nimble. Also, I see an end to physical delivery between now and then.

What am I missing?
 
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