Page 9 - Duff McKagan Case Study

McKagan moved to Seattle four years later and signed up for more

classes at a local community college which he said gave him a hunger

for academia. Later he undertook a finance degree at Seattle

University's Albers School of Business and even though he was 10

years older than his fellow students, he fitted in.

McKagan’s first $100,000 in stock investments in 1994 reaped rewards.

Largely because he was in Seattle, he bought

Starbucks,

Microsoft, and

Amazon.com.

He went from not knowing a thing about finance to becoming actively

involved in managing his portfolio, which included everything from stocks

and mutual funds to property.

Today McKagan’s investment strategy is fairly conventional:

• 65 percent of his money in stocks,

• the rest in bonds and

• real estate trusts (plus a big house in Seattle, three investment

properties, and a cabin).

He doesn’t seek out hot stocks, but just prunes ones that take on too

much debt.