Regular readers of Financial Horse know that there is this exercise I like to run.

And it goes like this.

Imagine you’re a new Fund Manager who is raising a new fund. You’ve gone on a bunch of roadshows, called your loyal clients, and just raised $100 million.

You’re feeling pretty good about yourself now.

Then comes the hard part.

How do you deploy that $100 million into the market over the next 3 to 6 months?

The holding period you have in mind is approximately 5 to 10 years, but if a stock / REIT goes up significantly before that, you have no problems exiting the position early.

You have no existing positions since the fund is brand new. What stocks would you buy?

I love this exercise because it forces us to look at the market as it is, not as how we want it to be.

Too often in investing we get attached to a stock