stub
HomePersonal SituationAn Investment Club Update

An Investment Club Update

Earlier this year I started an investment club with some friends. The idea was simple; each member would put in an initial $500 and an automatic $100 contribution every month.  After the first month I didn’t have very high hopes for the investment club’s survival.  It took us a few months but we finally hit our stride.

How We Operate our Investment Club

We are only 7 or so months deep and it took us a few heated exchanges to get here but what occurs:

  • One person will approach the group via a private facebook page with an investing idea.  That idea may be a particular company or a sector.  It is a sales approach (albeit to your partners but still trying to selling your idea) and should be treated as such.  Those that have just said, “I want to buy XYZ, inc” have been met with “no” votes pretty quickly.
  • That initial approach will include a purchase amount (usually between $500 and $1,000…but we have had as high as $2,000) and a possible exit strategy.
  • There are usually questions that go back and forth and during the exchange people will interject with Yes or No Votes.  With 9 members it takes 6 votes to get to an answer. A few times text messages had to go out to tell the person to check the facebook page.
  • We have used this technique for getting out of a position as well.

There have been multiple times where emails were sent out to give people the opportunity to be bought out of the partnership.  To date no one has taken the offer.

One of my favorite things is that (sans editing) everyone’s comments and feelings are memorialized! It makes it harder for someone to say, “I didn’t think that” or “That’s not what I said.”  Even better, Facebook will show that the person saw a particular message but then just didn’t say anything.

It is very interesting to watch the interaction between the partners.  For example, we have one partner who is a very good buddy of mine that believes that saying “I like X” in a thread not about that company is him offering something. His ideas often just die because he is not willing to do the work to get something approved.

Even without realized and unrealized gains $10,800 has gone collectively into the partnership.  I am not sure how long the partnership will go on, but at this point there is no reason to slow down!

RELATED ARTICLES

2 COMMENTS

  1. Thanks for the update on the investment club; I was actually wondering how things were going after the rough start this past spring. Love the sales pitch that needs to go along with people’s suggestions. It is the development of the sales pitch and the evaluation of each idea where members realize the maximize benefits of an investment club.

    Few questions:
    1) Have you figured out the tax time responsibilities?
    2) Additionally, does your group have a maximum number of positions?
    3) What type of investments has the group been making thus far. Always interesting to see how the “group think” affects the actual investments being made (some folks are extremely risky while others more conservative).

  2. LOL! This should be interesting.

    My sister-in-sin and her pals formed an investment club. They lived in Seattle, and so naturally, what should they buy into but Starbucks in its infancy!

    They made a ton of money. I think they got out before the stock dropped in value. Dunno how they did on their other choices, but thanks to the Starbucks serendipity, overall they never lost money.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Related Articles

Recent Comments