Holiday Portfolio: Digging In to Year-End

The joys of Thanksgiving. A time to talk turkey, watch football and, of course, review TheStreet.com's holiday portfolio.

Some lessons are easier learned than others.

At this time a year ago, I penned the following: "There is plenty to be thankful for in this year's portfolio, especially when you consider that one turkey -- Pfizer(PFE Quote) -- is down over 20% (more on that later). In total, the portfolio has worked just about as I had hoped -- good balance between dividends and growth."

Fast forward one year, and the message is the same: The holiday portfolio has worked beautifully, showing that diversification -- meaning owning quality equities across various economic sectors (not necessarily just a lot of stocks) -- provides one of the better methods for stable, less volatile growth of an equity portfolio. The holiday portfolio is only five stocks, but stocks that represent diverse economic sectors, and it has again -- even with the ghost of Pfizer -- provided better-than-average performance. ...