Barry Campbell’s “White Trash and Minor Vices Portfolio”

Back in March, my friend Barry Campbell and his wife started investing in their own White Trash and Minor Vices Portfolio.

As Barry explained:

Everyone says “invest in what you know.”

I’m about to put my money where my big mouth is. Carrie and I invest, mostly in index funds and ETFs, every month through Sharebuilder, which allows fractional purchases of shares in stocks and funds for a flat monthly fee.

The vast majority of our modest monthly stake goes into a total-market index fund and an aggregated bond fund.

But I’m going to make a modest investment in a stock portfolio — a mini-fund of my own making, if you will — called “White Trash and Minor Vices” (motto: don’t beat your wife, beat the Dow) the constituent stocks of which are:

• BFB – Brown-Forman Corp. Cl BHolding company for distilleries that produce Jack Daniel’s, Early Times, Canadian Mist, Southern Comfort, Finlandia, and others. Recently acquired a major stake in a Mexican tequila manufacturer.
• BUD – Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc.Brewer of cheap domestic beer; owner of theme parks.
• CHB – Champion Enterprises Inc.Major manufacturer of mobile homes and modular buildings.

For Barry’s description of the whole portfolio, click here.

How are they doing?

[November 8, 2007] The market has its ups and downs, but White Trash just keeps on gittin’-r-done.

Since its inception in March 2007, the White Trash Portfolio is up 11.1%.
…Over the same time period, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking the major indexes performed as follows:

• DIA, which tracks the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is up 6.9%.
• SPY, which tracks the S&P 500, is up 3.2%.
• VTI, which tracks the performance of the broad US stock market as a whole, is also up 3.2%.
• IYC, which tracks the Dow Jones Consumer Cyclical index, is down 6.5%.

Go Barry!