Thank you alnby, great reply. It is wonderful to hear from investors who have been in the market long periods of time, managing a portfolio of a meaningful size. I have been lucky enough to learn from a few very good sources, though never a broker! My investing journey started 7 years ago and my age (late 30s), along with when I started, has meant it was purely online.
Intelligent Investor share advisor was a big help at first, though now my outlook is slightly different. They really did shape how I invest and were a great help when starting out. Fund manager reports have been helpful, particularly Selector Funds, whose reports I read religiously. It is about the best performing unlevered fund I have seen, but almost nobody has heard of it. Hotcopper has been a source of good info, once I got past the 90% of posts that are produced by people who are not genuine investors. Investors who are buying profit making companies and actually running a portfolio are not the majority of posters on here, but luckily I have found this little group. If you look at the posters on BRG, REH, RHC and more of your holdings - these are the guys I have found helpful.
Lastly I should mention a special thanks to madamswer. Obviously he is a prolific poster who spends an enormous amount of time researching companies and kindly provides excellent real time insights for HC readers. People like him, yourself and a number of others (thunderhead1, JAG, MarsC, Jimmy_C, Warrigals, Klogg, Winnie, eternalgrowth, transversal et al) all deserve a mention. More keep popping up that look interesting, puppasmurf just saw your post and I will have a look at your stuff as well. These guys are often running portfolios in the 100Ks or millions and are actually what I would call genuine investors that think about risk and general portfolio management. Since I am managing pretty much all of our wealth, including an SMSF, I need to be careful.
BRG is a great company, though I am always happy to hear counter arguments. The last couple of years this type of company has been creeping more and more into my portfolio. By spreading my money out over 40 or so of these types of companies, I have had a relatively low stress decent return portfolio. BRG may be higher or lower in a year, but odds would favour it being higher and certainly in five years the odds would be even better.
The following video may interest investors on this thread. ‘Talk ya book’ is a series that speaks to fund managers and I have watched all of them – this guy sums up what I am trying to do (though I am more diversified) and I felt it was the best video in the series.
(20min delay)