It is better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done.

Non, Je ne Regrette Rien

At this point ENZL has balanced out our losses with EWZ. I guess this proves the value of diversification.

Today we're looking at Home Depot, CVS, Proctor & Gamble.

Both Home Depot and CVS have been outperforming respective their sectors (consumer discretionary and staples). They also have higher dividends than their funds (VCR & VDC, respectively).

We can do two buys, and we'd like to do one consumer discretionary and one staples. For consumer discretionary we liked Amazon, but it was too expensive, and we hated Comcast on principle, because that's only a rung above investing in privatized prisons.

On a side note, what sector would even fall under?

This means that for consumer discretionary Home Depot looks good.

We talked to someone we knew who was a sales rep who worked quite a bit with Home Depot, and he had a lot of good things to say anecdotally about how they do business. While this isn't really data-driven, it does seem to bolster our case.

Anyhow, let's narrow our decision on staples. We had been considering CVS and Proctor & Gamble. P & G was 12% of VDC and CVS is 5%. Basically, these are companies we are looking at making a substantial investment in anyway if we were to go with the ETFs. However, we are hoping to pick the winners, at it were, from those funds. Another reason for going with a single stock is investing solely in the companies we like, either economically or with respect to values (Philip Morris, Comcast, Wal-Mart), but that's getting off track again.

Even though P&G has been underperforming relative to its index, it still has a better dividend than CVS, making it more appealing to us, given our strategy. In theory, it is a (relatively) more guaranteed return.


P&G has a low beta and  a reasonable dividend. Those aspects fit very nicely with our generally risk-averse strategy and mindset. We like something safe that will give us a steady, even if small return. The purpose of the consumer staples sector is to have a stable investment. Our thought is to pick a representative component of a stable consumer staples fund. Additionally, we are due for two purchases, which means making a simple decision may be best for moving forward. Or as the great poet laureate Gibby Haynes once said, "It is better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done."

It looks like we are going to buy PG, so next week we will look at Home Depot vs. its fund and whether or not we want to purchase it.

Profit!