About the stock bloggers: Brian White

What was the first stock you owned?
When I was 24, I purchased my first equity stock -- Procter & Gamble. I was just then becoming well-versed in the marketplace, and at that time, consumer discretionary was a sector I knew quite a bit about, and P&G was the most solid performer with the best present and future prospects. So, I plunked down about $800 for my shares and the rest, as they say, is history.

What is your worst investment ever?
Probably -- no, very much so, my worst investment was in Nortel Networks. I was buying like crazy in 1998 and 1999 due to the incredible run-up in Nortel stock and soaring sales and contracts that company was making as the dot-com bubble was filling up. When it crashed in 2000 or so (depending on who you ask), Nortel and another holding of mine, Cisco, started to plummet as well. My Nortel shares, mostly bought at $58 and $63 each, went down to trading at the under-$5 level by the end of 2001. Like a true dollar-cost-average freak, I refused to give up and/or admit defeat by selling and I ended up buying almost 3,000 more shares at 66 cents each in 2002 when the stock was less than a dollar a piece. It's regained to over $3 as of now, but I'm not sure if I'll ever get my entire investment back. Add to this all the accounting scandals and CEO firings at Nortel recently and who knows where this company will end up. Luckily, I avoided Lucent at the same time.

That was the last time you listened to anyone else's stock tip, right?
Strangely, I've never paid attention to stock tips. People who have given them to me usually are going on such extreme speculation and hearsay that I have to say my peace and then just forget. I like to do at least a little research before I buy and at least try to become a semi-expert on the company, its position and fundamentals, and the outlook for the industry in which it operates -- and stock tips are too tipsy for me in most cases.

What is your investing success story?
I have a few, but none of them are earth-shaking. Well, you decide. In an IRA and many taxable accounts I have, my returns from inception have exceeded 20% due to enormous diversification in real estate, small-cap, mid-cap, emerging markets and developed market index funds. The costs are virtually nil, the returns and exposure to risk is just right and my retirement portfolio is growing by leaps and bounds. Will this continue -- who knows (hey, past performance is no guarantee of future results, right?). But, then again, some holdings in Tenaris Steel, Genentech and FARO Technologies have done quite handsomely for me in the last two years, earning over 40% each averaged. If I can keep returns like that up, I'll be blogging from my own island in a few years.

What do you own now?
I have a pretty diverse stock portfolio at this time, including varied amounts of shares of these companies:

• Aixtron (AIXG)
  
• Citigroup (C)
  
• Cisco (CSCO)
  
• LM Ericsson ADRs (ERICY)
  
• General Electric (GE)
  
• Microsoft (MSFT)
  
• Nortel Networks (NT)
  
• Seagate Technology (STX)
  
• Veeco Instruments (VECO)
  
• Amazon (AMZN)
  
• Amgen (AMGN)
  
• Genentech (DNA)
  
• FARO Technologies (FARO)
  
• Hot Topic (HOTT)
  
• Omnicell (OMCL)
  

and many Dodge & Cox mutual funds -- and many, many, many Vanguard index and no-load mutual funds.

What are you cheap about?
I'm real cheap about almost everything I purchase, from Jello-O on sale to vehicles to homes to scrutinizing every detail of all the utilities and services I have (cellular, satellite, electricity, cheapest gasoline strategy, etc.) and choosing the cheapest but most fulfilling provider I can. By being extremely frugal, this allows me to hoard everything else -- and this is a good thing. Saving is the most healthy habit I have outside of eating organic foods and being a nutrition freak. I live well below my means and put my "show" in my financial goals and overall planning, and not in immediate assets. Yes, I'm stingy -- what else can you say?