I'm Resolving to Start a New Stock Portfolio for 2026

The first of January is a time when many people start a batch of New Year's resolutions. Some fall by the wayside quickly, while others turn into lifelong habits.

Like many investors, I have largely relied on mutual funds and exchange-traded funds for most of my investing. They're simple, low-maintenance, and inexpensive, leaving their shareholders with more time to be productive in other areas. But after nearly 20 years of writing as a contributing analyst for The Motley Fool, I think now's a good time for me to open a new chapter in my investing journey and explore some stocks that have largely gone unnoticed. I'd like to invite you along for the ride.

The goal of the Voyager Portfolio

Here at The Motley Fool, you'll find many different avenues for getting ideas on stock investments. The free Fool.com site offers multiple looks at various stocks from many different points of view, often with different writers coming to divergent conclusions about whether a particular stock would make a good investment. Behind the paywall, premium Motley Fool services share the views of Fool co-founder/CEO Tom Gardner and his team of analysts, often offering more in-depth looks at companies that catch their eye. And with new AI-powered tools at their disposal, subscribers can look across the entire spectrum of the stock market in search of the companies that will bring them success and fit best in their diversified portfolios.

With dozens of different premium services, there are hundreds of stocks covered somewhere in the Motley Fool universe. However, that still leaves thousands of stocks that haven't been recommended. Some of those stocks look attractive by various measures, whether as potential growth stock candidates, as attractively priced value stocks, or as niche players in disruptive industries that have unique prospects to expand and dominate their markets.

My goal with this new portfolio is to go beyond the known Fool universe of stocks to explore. Just as NASA's Voyager spacecraft embarked almost 50 years ago on missions to discover more about the Solar System and eventually fly beyond its outer limits, what I'm calling my Voyager Portfolio could help investors like you learn more about some of the less publicized stocks in the market.

Image source: Getty Images.

How the portfolio will work

My current plan is simple. I will regularly look at new stocks, taking a multi-day approach to learn more about companies and their businesses. For each stock, one story will focus on its industry, its prospects for growth, and the role that the particular company plays in the broader context of its own market. A second story will dive deeper into the company's financials, with the intent of unearthing what has made the company successful in the past and how corporate leadership has taken advantage of the opportunities it has seen. A final article will look at the company's plans for future growth and make an assessment of how likely it is to win in the long run, along with the risks and potential obstacles in its path.

You will be able to see in the disclosures at the bottom of each article that none of these stocks will be Motley Fool recommendations at the time of writing, and I will not own shares as I write. However, my intent is to invest the article proceeds in the stock in a dedicated brokerage account as soon as disclosure and trading rules allow.

To be absolutely clear, I'm doing this for educational purposes only. I'm not suggesting any reader invest in any of the stocks I write about. The amounts that get invested in this portfolio will be minimal in the context of my total investment capital, but they'll nevertheless provide a gauge for the companies that catch my eye.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading about this new project. I'm looking forward to seeing how this new experiment will work out, and I hope you'll join me and share your comments along the way. Here's to the best of success in 2026!

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.