Investment Account

A few weeks ago, I decided that since I’m working from home for the foreseeable future, I would have time during the day to watch the stock market so it was time to open my own stock brokerage account. I ended up picking Fidelity and transferred some money into the account so I can buy stock and mutual funds for myself. I also opened an account for my mom, thinking I would help her invest. Well, I was quickly overwhelmed by reading prospectuses on funds and research on public companies. At my job, my previous responsibility was being the Treasurer, which meant investing the company’s free cash. That ranged from ~$50M to over $500M. However, the company had a very conservative investment strategy so it was all bank accounts and government bonds. I have a lot less cash to invest and I can take a bit more risk.

Anyway, Chase was offering $2,000 to sign up as a Private Client. Sounds fancy, but mostly you get a dedicated banker each time you walk into the branch, and there’s also an investment guy that you can utilize. I met both guys at my local branch and they seem very knowledgable and cool so I went ahead and converted my checking/savings accounts plus opened a couple investment accounts. My tax guy also invests for me but it’s almost all in mutual funds and has a pretty conservative strategy. The Chase accounts will be a high-yield account that buys bonds for cash, and a large cap investment account buying individual stock. The account has been open for a few days and already has lots of stuff in it. Here are the top 10 holdings by value:

• AAPL (Apple)
• TSLA (Tesla)
• MSFT (Microsoft)
• AMZN (Amazon)
• PYPL (Paypal)
• FB (Facebook)
• AMD (Advanced Micro Devices)
• NVDA (Nvidia)
• MA (Mastercard)
• SGEN (Seattle Genetics)

The portfolio only has several shares in each stock as the investment advisor tries to mimic the market but actually hold shares. He could have bought into Large Cap or Index funds but that would mean investing in the fund issuing company and not the companies themselves. I had wanted to avoid investing in Tesla since it was so volatile but now I’m the proud owner of 41 shares of TSLA. I usually don’t like to hold individual stock since I feel like I need to watch the price movement all day. Hopefully with someone else managing it, I will be more hands-off.