As I have become more and more involved on Commonstock, I have gotten a number of questions about my Comerica ($CMA) position.

If you look at my profile, you will see that my best "trade" was selling $CMA for a 103.35% gain on January 9, 2022.

You might be asking, "What does this Scoreboard guy know about $CMA and how did he make this great gain"?

The truth is, this position in $CMA was started years ago - approximately 80 years ago!

I talked with my father-in-law to get some background and understanding of the $CMA position, and he provided me with so much more. This is not a story of a great stock pick, but a story of education, hard work, and building a legacy of Generational Wealth.

My wife's family has been investing for generations. The love of investing and understanding of the power of the stock market started with her Great Grandfather, passed down to her Grandparents, on to her father and uncle and now on to us.

The story starts with my wife's Great Grandfather sometime in the 1940's. He was a "math wiz who loved football and hockey". Working as a "checker" in the Detroit tool & die industry, Great Grandfather earned a great wage for his time. "With only one child... he plunged deep into the stock market in the 1940's". He utilized his understanding of math to build a discipline and the power of compound interest. He began dollar cost averaging into the Detroit Bank and Trust - which was deeply connected with the city of Detroit and its industry through good and bad times. "Between mergers, splits and dividends that single position grew massively".

Over the course of his life, Great Grandfather passed his knowledge and love for investing to his daughter and son-in-law (wife's grandparents). My wife's grandfather was an engineer from a working class family with little money and no investing knowledge but, "was also quite fascinated with the stock market and also liked the math and diving into income statements". A connection developed between Great Grandfather and his son-in-law and the investing torch was passed on to the next generation. My wife's grandparents understood the position they were in and understood that they had, “'legacy' money and could impact generations to come". My wife's grandparents continued DCA'ing into a number of companies - with a heavy industrial Detroit focus, including the Detroit Bank and Trust. They also started portfolios for each of their grandchildren to continue the legacy and pass on the power of the stock market.

Years later my wife, and now I, have been incredibly lucky to inherit this portfolio. This portfolio allowed my wife to pay for college and still have a small portfolio left to continue on with. More importantly, we have access to generation's worth of knowledge in the stock market through family. I, similar to my wife's grandfather, am an engineer and had little prior exposure to the stock market. I have made a connection with my father-in-law through the stock market and have tried to learn as much as I can to continue the legacy that was started more than 80 years ago.

Fast forward to today, and the Detroit Bank and Trust has become Comerica Bank. After utilizing the portfolio to pay down debts, the only holding left in the portfolio when my wife and I got married was tried and true $CMA. My wife and I began actively managing this portfolio at the height of the pandemic in March of 2020. With such a large position in one holding, my initial goal was to balance the $CMA position with other holdings through new money. However, as I learned about the risks of a heavily concentrated portfolio (and $CMA's severe drop in the summer of 2020), I began to slowly trim this $CMA position. Proceeds from these sales have been used to build positions I feel can be held and passed to future generations, as well. I have been cautious only to trim and to never sell the entirety of the position.

$CMA is still a large percentage of my wife's grandmother's portfolio and they are struggling to trim the position due to the emotional attachment developed over generations:

"Funny story, in 2009 CMA dipped down to $20. My grandfather had passed... My Mom wanted to buy more. My Grandfather had taught my Mom and demonstrated in her life that when there are these big dips you want to buy more... My Mom bought more and asked me a few times since then to buy more including in 2020 when CMA dipped so low. My friend... calls her the Oracle of Detroit for her investing prowess".

The linked sale in January was part of my Quarterly Review. After an incredible run up at the end of 2021, I sold 10 shares of $CMA at price of $98.17 with an Average Cost Basis of $48.28. The oldest share in this lot was originally purchased on April 4, 2005! This $CMA position is slowly getting closer to right-sized for my portfolio and my oldest share currently held was purchased on October 2, 2008.

This isn't a story of a one time "great trade". This trade was the result of generations of investing and education of which my wife and I are lucky enough to be the benefactors. My goal is to continue the Family Tradition by directing the portfolio left to us and developing the love and understanding of the stock market for future generations.