re: What is the biggest position in your portfolio and why?

XOM

Not if you buy in a large lump sum. I use DCA for my mutual funds in retirement accounts. But for individual stocks and ETFs, I typically buy a large position and leave it alone.

Chevron, by far. Because I like oil.

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Because I like oil.

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Me too. And big agriculture. And smoking. And obese kids who love soft drinks.

Currently National Oilwell Varco, then Apple, followed by Ivanhoe Energy. In the black on NOV and IVAN, in the red by 5% on Apple.

BBRG

DWS Stable Value fund but it is only about 15% of my total portfolio.

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Aflac

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How is that doing for you? I am looking at working for them when I graduate and hear it is a good company that performs well too

Well I only own some stock, but I assume its a well operated organization considering the consistency of their stock.

Also, this was some stock passed on to me, I did not purchase it myself. Growing up my grandfather would give his grandchildren stock as gifts. Pretty cool to look back on it now.

I've considered moving some of that holdings around, but its through Aflac directly so I don't currently have every day access (probably a good thing )

XOM has pretty strong dividend growth like 8% a year over the last decade which is important bc effectively your dividend is constantly beating inflation....but the dividend itself is only 2.6% I believe and its $89/share so youre looking at .57 per quarter per share....also the ex-div date is important bc you only get dividends based on what you own by that date.

XOM used to yield 10% back in the day at one point, and has been an amazing holding throughout the years....their future is bright with natural gas, but after doing nothing for the last few years I bailed....so many more bluechips with equally bright if not brighter prospects like Mcdonalds and Philip Morris international with their china and other emerging market opportunities.honestly if you're looking for a similar company with a higher dividend....I sold all my XOM and split in thirds with CVX(chevron) at 3.14%, SNP (sinopec is China's version of exxon and theyre booming) @ 4.3% yield and COP(conocophillips) @ 4.6%

Exxon is nice, but the yield is nothing to write home about....i bought it at 16 years old and sold it at 33....I did awesome on it btw

XOM was $85.94 on 1/3/12 and $85.04 at the end of the year, you would have made basically just the dividends.....not good, not bad, but not too awesome considering the run the market was on

Either way do not listen to traders, buy solid companies, hold them, and reinvest the dividends...look up a dividend reinvestment back test calculator and input your stock and your date of birth....I just did a calculation for 1979 on my birth date... $10,000 would be about $2.5M today...and thats if you only put it in Mcdonalds,Exxon, and Altria(which spun off philip morris but yes you should own MO and PM to get the total effect but PM does no business in america and has more growth potential and is also awesome as a bet against the US dollar)

XOM had the least return......at 11,000+%
MCD returned........15,000%
MO returned 48,000%

All kicked arse....bottom line dividend stocks rock, and people who love buying non dividend payers must love pain bc market drops for dividend payers mean more shares paid vs agony .....look at all the people on Baidu's ballsack last year, it fell from $150 to $85 today and all those who felt it was the next google are left with a holding yielding nothing.....if Philip Morris fell 30% id jump for joy bc my quarterly dividend at .85 today will rise like clockwork to probably .96 a quarter in september and it would buy me a sweet sweet batch....is it bad im rooting for a market crash? Im 34 I got time