How to Invest $50,000 Right Now

I’m often asked how someone can build a portfolio from my Buy List. I’ve purposely built the Buy List so it’s both easy-to-follow and scalable, meaning it works for portfolios large and small.

No, you don’t need to buy all 20 stocks to have a well-rounded portfolio, but it’s great if you can. At minimum, eight stocks are enough for some basic diversification.

I wanted to give you an example of how to build a solid portfolio based on my Buy List. Please keep in mind that the following is just an example; it’s not investment advice. I want people to get the principles behind how I built this rather than the exact specifics of the portfolio.

Company Ticker Price Dividend Shares Balance Income Yield
AFLAC AFL $62.98 $1.48 100 $6,298.00 $148.00 2.35%
CA Technologies CA $31.11 $1.00 200 $6,222.00 $200.00 3.21%
Express Scripts ESRX $76.99 85 $6,544.15 $0.00 0.00%
Ford F $15.47 $0.50 400 $6,188.00 $200.00 3.23%
McDonald’s MCD $95.47 $3.24 70 $6,682.90 $226.80 3.39%
Microsoft MSFT $40.16 $1.12 150 $6,024.00 $168.00 2.79%
Stryker SYK $80.86 $1.22 70 $5,660.20 $85.40 1.51%
Wells Fargo WFC $49.12 $1.20 130 $6,385.60 $156.00 2.44%
Total $50,004.85 $1,184.20 2.37%

For building this portfolio, I followed three rules.

First is that these are all good stocks. If you’re following my Buy List, then you don’t need to worry- they’re all good. I do the hard work for you on that front.

Second is that this portfolio is well-diversified (though it could use some energy stocks). It’s got finance, tech, industrial, food, healthcare. This is a key that so many investors miss—and no, diversity doesn’t mean owning both Apple and Google. You’ll also see that the positions are roughly equally weighted.

Third is that I made it simple. Keep it simple, stupid. Too many investors make their investing strategy needlessly complicated.

If you use a discount broker, you can spend around $100 in commissions (probably less), which works out to 20 basis points. You probably won’t need to worry about rebalancing for another 18 months.

Finally, please note that this is merely for the equity portion of your portfolio. You want to have some fixed income as well depending on your risk profile.

Posted by on March 24th, 2014 at 12:02 pm


The information in this blog post represents my own opinions and does not contain a recommendation for any particular security or investment. I or my affiliates may hold positions or other interests in securities mentioned in the Blog, please see my Disclaimer page for my full disclaimer.