So I got one B while getting my MBA at St. Edwards. It was in personal finance. I got a B because we had to pick portfolios and my teacher and I disagreed on a good "Buy and Hold" portfolio. She said mine was not a sound portfolio because it didn't contain any bonds, and was therefore not diversified enough. The project basically was to take $100,000.00 and invest it in investments (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, long-term CD's, futures...whatever could be tracked) that you would be able to hold onto for the long term, without making many changes. You were to make your decisions based on your age (I was about 26 or 27 at the time), which would influence how risky your portfolio should be (the further away from retirement you were, the riskier you could afford to be). I did have a diversified portfolio, I just didn't include bonds (which I find to generally be a poor investment).
Well, I have tracked that portfolio ever since. At close of the market today, the value of it was $263,265.46, which translates into a 165.77% increase in 10 years. I challenge anyone to be able to show that kind of return in today's market. I wish I remembered the name of that teacher. I would love to see what she had to say about my portfolio now. I also wish I had actually invested real money 10 years ago!
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God I'd love to be the fly on the wall for that... I have a similar story I think I'll blog about. AT LSU, my Pascal teacher told me I wasn't very smart and kept giving me Cs on my programming tests. i pulled a B out of the class (don't know how i think it came from Jeff cursing her out at the end of the semester), but I not only wound up a programmer but one of the best in Indy.
ReplyDeleteThen again, maybe I won't blog about it; not as good a story as yours. :-D