In this series, we show investment portfolios of real self-guided investors and ask about their investment philosophy. Our goal is to bring a holistic perspective to retail investing and normalize conversations about wealth building.
None of this information is financial advice or recommendation. Do your own research.
Investor profile
Name: Viet (IG: @myroadtofire)
Age: 34
Family: Married with 2 kids and 1 baking in the oven
Location: Sunnyvale, CA
Job: Engineering Manager
Portfolio overview
What type of an investor are you? What are your goals, activity level, risk profile etc?
I consider myself to be a passive investor that occasionally tries to capitalize on market opportunities. I generally have a fixed amount of money each year that auto-invests for me. Each week I have several accounts that pull from my checking account and buy index funds (VOO, VTI) and also my dividend aristocrat portfolio on M1 Finance.
My goal is to reach a certain level of invested net worth that will be able to service my lifestyle with just dividends. That number is $4,000,000 for me. I am a part of the popular FIRE movement, but have opted to set a higher FIRE number because I am conservative when it comes to making decisions that will have an impact 20+ years from today. You can read more about my journey at myroadtofire.com and how I plan to retire early, hopefully in several months.
Can you describe your current portfolio and how you got there?
My portfolio leans heavily towards tech stocks because that’s what I know and where I’ve worked. I’ve spent a total of 7 years at LinkedIn (which is now a part of MSFT), Facebook, and Google. Together, those make up a major part of my net worth and I’m hesitant to sell due to paying capital gains at a high tax rate--I live in California. The plan is to move out of state, retire early, and then slowly trim down on those particular tech stocks.
I have a decent amount in index funds, which I started building up over the last 6-7 years. I’ve recently had to cash some out because we’re currently making offers on a house. But index funds is where I plan to keep re-investing.
Finally, I have several stocks like TGT, AMZN, AAPL that were 5-15xers for me and turned a small investment into a significant portion of my pie. I bought those stocks when they were hit hard at the end of 2015 and at the end of 2018.
Any investment wins or mistakes you can share?
I have made a ton of mistakes. At least $3,000,000 in mistakes. You can read more about it here.
In terms of wins, I think some of my best wins took place due to the COVID crash in March 2020. I made some pretty bold moves on UBER, LYFT, and TQQQ that ended up returning ~500% over the course of the year. It wasn’t a life-changing profit, but something that I felt proud of :).
My biggest win is probably just holding on to all of my FB (10x) and MSFT (4x) stock for as long as I have. It’s scary how much of my net worth is dependent on those 2 companies! But I feel very confident they will be successful for at least another 5 years.
What investment opportunities are you excited about in the future?
I am personally excited about the new wave of companies that will change how humans interact with each other. Zoom is an obvious winner from the COVID lockdowns. But I believe companies like Instacart & DoorDash who can deliver food to our homes cheaply or Figma & Asana who can increase collaboration speed and productivity of organizations will be wildly successful in the new-normal.
And finally, the war on cash is real. I believe everything will be digital in my lifetime. That we will no longer see physical coins or cash. I believe companies like Square, PayPal, and Robinhood who have captured the younger generation of workers will have a huge opportunity to build banks and consumer tools to make that a reality.
Where do you get investing information, inspiration and validation?
It’s sad to admit, but I get my investing information from CNBC’s YouTube channel. Disclaimer: I consume that information, but I rarely act on any of it! I honestly don’t make a lot of investment moves that aren’t automated. However, I did spend a huge amount of time researching and understanding how fiat money, world economies, taxes, the Federal Reserve, and gov’t policies all have massive influences over how individuals like us should navigate the modern financial system. For that I recommend reading Warren Buffet’s yearly shareholder letters and watching Milton Friedman’s lecture series (it’s long, but definitely changed my life).
Finally, for inspiration I created a spreadsheet that projected my net worth until I reach the young age of 90 years old. I make an effort to update that spreadsheet with my current net worth every week to see how I’m tracking against my projections. That has been the biggest gamified part of my life and has helped me tremendously in times where I’ve thought about doing something stupid with my money. For other types of inspiration, I have a couple of friends who are very knowledgeable about money / personal finances who push information to me. Sometimes I’m just sick of thinking about money (probably a good thing :)), but they will re-inspire me with some news or an achievement of theirs. It’s hard to find buddies like this, but if you are able to, I’d stick with them for as long as you want to build wealth.
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