Our Practical Investor's Portfolio

Can a wise but moderately lethargic investor beat -- or at least equal -- the stock market? Kiplinger's columnist and author of Investing 101 Kathy Kristof aims to answer just that question with this practical investing project. She has taken approximately $200,000 of her own money and divided it into two pieces -- $10,000 going into Vanguard Total Stock Market Index ETF (symbol VTI ), and the rest going into individual stocks that she selects.

Read her Practical Investing columns for updates on what she's buying, selling and holding. And in the table below, keep track of her portfolio's performance.

Name	Ticker	PurchaseValue	SharesHeld	CurrentPrice	CurrentValue	TotalReturn
Ares Capital	ARCC	$10,037.68	1148.272	$16.39	$18,820.18	87.5%
Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance	ARI	10,018.75	1085.605	18.11	19,660.31	96.2%
Apple Inc.	AAPL	16,076.73	355.909	154.12	54,852.70	241.2%
AV Homes Inc.	AVHI	11,903.00	1000.000	17.15	17,150.00	44.1%
Copa Holdings	CPA	13,785.00	112.297	124.53	13,984.35	1.4%
Corning Inc.	GLW	10,003.92	831.758	29.92	24,886.20	148.8%
General Motors	GM	15,719.00	595.115	40.38	24,030.74	52.9%
Gilead Sciences Inc.	GILD	13,621.50	156.701	81.02	12,695.92	-6.8%
Intel Corp.	INTC	9,996.30	529.731	38.08	20,172.16	101.8%
KKR Financial Holdings	KKR	9,997.63	927.851	20.33	18,863.21	88.7%
Knowles Corp. *	KN	1,698.00	83.000	15.27	1,267.41	-25.4%
Lazard Ltd. A	LAZ	10,174.03	227.181	45.22	10,273.12	1.0%
Seagate Technology Plc.	STX	16,304.81	696.082	33.17	23,089.04	41.6%
Spirit Airlines	SAVE	1,158.68	83.000	33.41	2,773.03	139.3%
Starwood Property Trust	STWD	6,887.43	733.457	21.72	15,930.69	131.3%
Colony Starwood Homes *	SFR	3,114.72	117.225	36.37	4,263.47	36.9%
Target Corp.	TGT	10,021.39	232.854	59.01	13,740.71	37.1%
Tegna	TGNA	14,530.00	1000.000	13.33	13,330.00	-8.3%
Cash					26,386.74
Portfolio Total		$189,998.00	9916.038		$336,169.96	76.9%
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF	VTI	10,863.00	183.352	129.52	$23,747.75	118.6%