Become a Member

Friday File: Diversifying Away From Yourself



You know how people always say you should “invest in yourself?” Well, given now irrational and emotional we can all be from time to time, when it comes to investing I think there’s also a pretty good argument for diversifying away from yourself.

Several times over the years I’ve written about that general idea of “diversifying away from yourself” as an investor, by which I mostly mean making investments in companies that are themselves good investors — Berkshire Hathaway is the ultimate example, of course, buying a company like that is a way to both get diversification by effectively investing through someone who has different opinions than you do, and to outsource your emotional response to the markets to Warren Buffett, who has proven he’s a lot steadier than most of us in that regard. There are a lot of other companies we can think of in that way, too (and even having your money actively managed by a good mutual fund manager serves a similar purpose). Some of the value comes from getting exposed to different investments, and some of it comes just getting your twitchy trigger finger away from an investment portfolio — if you have a hard time being a “buy and hold” investor through tough times, you can invest in Berkshire Hathaway and get a piece of Warren’s patience. For most of us, that’s likely to help.

The company I want to talk about today, this vein, came to mind particularly because I was reminded, in a story I did about Rolls-Royce on Wednesday, of the update that Exor had bought a stake in Rolls-Royce last year.

That made me think, hmmm, that was always an interesting story… I wonder how Exor’s doing now? (I don’t actually know whether Exor owns Rolls Royce today, to be clear, and it was never a big position of theirs, it just got a little mention in their Annual Letter a year ago).

The short answer is that I decided to add Exor to my portfolio this week… but I know you, you want the long answer. Buckle in.

Exor (EXO.MI in Italy, EXXRF OTC in the US) is a family-controlled (mostly) industrial conglomerate that has evolved from the empire built by FIAT founder Giovanni Agnelli and his successors, beginning in the late 19th century, and restructured and simplified as an investment holding company run ...

Irregulars Quick Take

Paid members get a quick summary of the stocks teased and our thoughts here. Join as a Stock Gumshoe Irregular today (already a member? Log in)

Sign Up for a Premium Membership

To view the rest of this article (and to have full access to the rest of our articles), sign up.
Already a member, log in.

Become a member

We use cookies on this site to enhance your user experience. By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us to set cookies.

More Info  
10
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x