Adam Goodman
Adam Goodman, 30
Occupation: Program manager, living in Toronto
Portfolio: Telus Corp., TD Bank, General Electric Co.
Financial history
While attending university, Adam Goodman spent freely on DVDs, Starbucks coffee, movies and going out with friends. He had even owned six cars by the time he got his undergraduate degree.
Cat:e528746c-3414-401a-b14b-50247e3bdf01Forum:726cb897-65e7-4529-a1da-c5192c9aa85a
At one point, his debt stood at $60,000. A wakeup call was meeting a fellow student who had saved almost as much as he had borrowed. After obtaining his master's degree in business, he moved back home with his parents and created "a very strict budget."
Investment approach
Now that he is debt-free, Mr. Goodman wants to save and invest for financial goals, such as owning a house and a comfortable retirement.
"My investment approach is to look for macroeconomic trends and their impact on the world. Then I try and trace these trends back to specific industries, and finally to specific companies with low to medium risk," he says. "For example, I believe energy demands will continue to increase over the next 20 to 30 years, so companies in the energy industry are of interest. I invested in GE as they are continuing their growth into energy markets, and the company is a low to medium risk given its previous success."
Best move
"Selling my small investment in mutual funds to pay off some outstanding debt - they were volatile and expensive to own."
Worst move
"Not tracking my stocks when I was younger, resulting in owning Nortel stock when it went bankrupt."
Advice
"There are two really important things. The first is how much risk you are willing to expose yourself to. If you don't want to expose yourself to a lot of risk, stay away from high-risk stocks that may yield significant gains, but at the same time could yield substantial losses.
"The second thing is that if you aren't tracking your investments, no one else is. There is nothing wrong with using a financial adviser to help select the right financial investment for you, but you still need to understand what investments you own and to be able to track them to get the success you want."
Mr. Goodman also wrote a book to share the lessons he learned about the importance of managing money wisely at a young age. It's called Following the Goods: Financial Management for the Young and Ambitious . He also blogs at followingthegoods.com.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Want to share your strategies? E-mail mccolumn@yahoo.com
|
Special series of excerpts from Investing for Canadians for Dummies:
|