Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRK.B)

[gfp927z]

>> Airline stocks <<

My dad is a pilot and aeronautical engineer, and he would never consider owning airline stocks. They are doing well at the moment, so I'll defer to Buffett's wisdom, but historically forget it.

Fwiw, my first stock was a small biotech, and after a big gain (on paper), it eventually evaporated into a big loss. I learned my lesson after that, for a while anyway. I always stayed away from bank stocks, but even their bonds can be treacherous, as my dad found out. His full service broker had him in some bonds of both Bear Stearns and Lehman, and we know what happened there. Luckily it was a relatively small part of his bond allocation.

Most investors eventually arrive at the same conclusion - use index funds, have a sensible asset allocation, and if you want excitement, buy a sports car. The key is to have a strategy that protects us from our own bad judgement and emotions. It's interesting that women tend to have better long term investing results. I guess unlike guys, they don't fool themselves into thinking they know what they're doing, and for guys humility has to be learned the hard way.