At the time that my wife suggested we buy Amazon, I was a bit skeptical, and asked why we would want some Internet book seller!
I accepted her argument for the buy, and we used 5% of the existing portfolio. It was $256/share, before the 20:1 split.
I still have a rule that I don’t like to have more than 5% of the portfolio in any particular stock, but I sure wish I’d been willing to bend the rule in the case of Amazon.
Where we are now is largely due to her awareness of markets. She is a retired intelligence officer, and it is simply part of her nature to wake up every morning and find out what is going on in the world. That kind of awareness has made for some really great insights, and some really great picks in stocks.
That said, we are a long-term investors. We don’t trade very often.
But when people ask how we invest, How we choose what to buy, I simply say, “ask her, she is the brains of the operation”.