The Quattrone Family
The Quattrone Family: Dad, Mom, Joe, Jenny, and Kateri
Occupation: Portfolio managers at The Family Fund
Portfolio: Ford Motor Co., Starbucks Corp., Intel Corp., Sprint Nextel Corp. and Sirius XM Radio Inc.
The Family Fund
Last Christmas, the Quattrone family - father Joe, mother Barbara, Joe, Jenny, and Kateri - did something rather unorthodox. Instead of giving each other presents, they pooled their money and invested it. As it turned out, The stocks they bought did rather well. The Family Fund, which began with $700, is now worth about $5,000, for a gain of close to 600 per cent.
Eldest child Joe Quattrone, 30, came up with the idea for The Family Fund. "I just grew tired of receiving gifts. I also found it a bit frivolous to get gifts for people that didn't really need them," explains Mr. Quattrone, an account executive with San Francisco-based advertising agency Venables Bell & Partners.
He did a PowerPoint presentation to show his family "what a little money could turn into." But the clincher was the idea of using the gains to take a family trip to Italy.
How The Family Fund operates
Each family member does some research on stocks they like. On Christmas Day, when they meet for the holidays, they go over their ideas. Then they vote on which ones they like the best.
The 600-per-cent gain in 2009
"Essentially, we looked at the market last Christmas and noticed several name-brand companies selling really cheap," recounts Mr. Quattrone. "So we went for stocks that were trading at low prices, but only got involved with brands that we knew." There was almost one misstep. "We had initially invested in Ford and GM, but quickly moved out of the GM business and into Ford when all of the bailout whispers became too much to deal with."
Worst move
General Motors, until they sold it.
Best move
By far, it was Sirius XM, the satellite-radio company. "I had my eye on Sirius XM for months leading up to our purchase, when it was trading at 12 cents per share," says Mr. Quattrone. "I thought to myself: 'This is incredible - this is an established brand name that has a monopoly.' The downside was that with the debt load, it had every chance of going bankrupt. We rolled the dice and it paid off big. I think we bought 2,000 shares at 10 cents, and then we doubled down another 2,000 when it hit 6 cents. By August it was at 72 cents."
Advice
The Quattrone family has a website at http://familyfund.wordpress.com/, where they plan to give updates on The Family Fund.
Don't do this with your retirement funds. Remarks Mr. Quattrone: "The Family Fund is meant to be a fun way to spend time and money together. Each of us only pitched in between $100 and $150."
Special to The Globe and Mail
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