Before you ask "Am I diversified", you should make sure that you know what (proper)
diversification is. It has nothing to do with buying in several industries, buying in
several sectors, or buying several kinds of securities. It only has to do with risk:
buying securities whose returns do not move up and down together.

Yes, you're well-diversified. MA may not provide you with any useful diversification, but
as it's only been around since May, 2006 there's too little history to say. Its
correlation of returns with NYX over that 9-month period is 79%; its correlation with GS
is only 9%.

As for NYX and GS trading together somewhat: history doesn't bear this out. Their
correlation of monthly returns over the last 2-1/2 years is only 11%; that's quite good.

David, would you put MA in the same camp as GS and NYX? NYX and GS are going to be more
correlated with trading volumes and banking deals out there.

you have three financials -- GS, MA and NYX. No, not diversified.

HR, its a good question so I posed it to Jim Cramer. His reply: The one area where this
person has to be careful is NYX versus GS. In one sense those two are diversified because
NYX is a growth play and GS is a value play but they are both in the same sector. If
volume at NYSE goes down then GS will go down. That said, the rest of the portfolio is
nicely diversified, but you just have to be a little careful on NYX and GS.

whatever.

I'm Neophyte investor and currently own GOOG, GS, MA, NYX, SHLD, and XOM. Am I
diversified?

Thank you for you input :-)