The Ideal Portfolio Size: Why 15–20 Stocks Is the Sweet Spot
Too many stocks dilute intention; too few amplify risk.
I’ve spent years wrestling with the shape of a portfolio—how big it should be, how wide its arms should reach, how many companies a person can truly understand at once. There was a time when I believed that more was always safer, that spreading my investments across dozens of stocks would protect me from whatever storms the market might send my way. But over time, I began to see the flaw in that instinct. I was no longer building a portfolio; I was scattering pieces of myself.
The realization came slowly, the way most meaningful realizations do. It arrived in quiet moments—when I noticed how little impact a strong performer had when buried among too many others, or when I found myself tracking companies I didn’t care about, companies I chose simply to feel shielded from uncertainty. Somewhere along the way, I understood that diversification isn’t the same as intention. And intention matters.
When my son asked me how many stocks someone should hold, the answer felt surprisingly simple: somewhere between fifteen and twenty. A range that gives a portfolio room to breathe without losing its sense of purpose. A range large enough to soften the blow of poor performance, yet small enough to let the strong voices be heard.
It’s a strange thing, discovering that balance. With fewer than ten positions, each one becomes a weight, its movements amplified—every rise thrilling, every fall unnerving. Too close, too intimate, too much power concentrated in a handful of names. But climb past twenty-five or thirty, and the opposite happens: everything becomes lukewarm. The great performers barely lift the whole. The poor performers barely dent it. The portfolio grows numb, unable to feel anything at all.
I’ve lived on both ends of that spectrum. I’ve held too few and felt the sting of a single stock shifting the wind. And I’ve held too many and felt disconnected, like I was carrying a bag of stones, each one familiar but none meaningful. Somewhere between those extremes, I stumbled into clarity.
Fifteen to twenty stocks is the place where understanding becomes possible. It’s the range where I can look at each holding and remember why it’s there—not just the numbers, but the story. The company’s resilience, its rhythm, its place in the broader movement of the market. A portfolio of that size becomes something like a conversation—one where every voice matters, where every participant contributes something real.
When I explained this to my son, I could see the idea settling in him. Not fully, not yet—these things take time—but enough for the seed to take hold. I told him that this range isn’t a rule, just a gentle boundary. Life isn’t static. Sometimes we drift up to thirty without realizing it. Sometimes we simplify down to ten because the moment demands it. But as a resting place, as a center of gravity, fifteen to twenty offers balance.
And balance, I’ve learned, is as vital in investing as it is in living. Too much of anything—ambition, caution, noise—can pull us away from ourselves. But the right amount, held with intention, creates space for clarity to emerge.
Somewhere in that quiet, centered space, a portfolio begins to feel less like a collection of tickers and more like a reflection of the person who built it. Thoughtful. Focused. Resilient.
And maybe that is the real lesson:
that the sweet spot isn’t just about numbers—it’s about the kind of investor we allow ourselves to become.