How Joel Turned a $7,000 Apple Investment Into a Diversification Strategy

In 2001, Joel Krugel bought 500 shares of Apple (AAPL) at $14 a share. A $7,000 bet on a newsletter tip.‍

"I subscribed to a stock newsletter and this guy said, hey, I think Apple's gonna make a great recovery," he says. "It's had some tough days in the 90s, but he said, put a little bit of money in Apple. So I thought, well, that's a great idea."

He let it sit. Through splits, through cycles, through decades of a career that had nothing to do with tech. Joel spent 40 years as a pastor, moving from Boston to Santa Barbara to Walnut Creek to Chicago. He was a chaplain at Christian colleges. Now he's semi-retired in Michigan, where he grew up.

Somewhere along that path, the $7,000 became over a million dollars.

"And of course then the issue becomes what do you do with this?" he says. "I didn't want to sell it off and face a massive capital gains. I was uncomfortable in having that much money just in one equity."

The weight of a single position

"Having such a large position in one stock was constantly on my mind," Joel says. "What's it doing today? What are people saying it's going to do down the road? Should I get out now with some of this and just pay the capital gains and move on?"

He describes it plainly. Persistent anxiety. The kind that comes from carrying a big unresolved decision.

The issue wasn't Apple. He still believed in the company. The issue was that too much of his life sat inside one ticker, and the tax bill made the obvious solution feel punitive.

Finding exchange funds

Joel did what most people do when they hit this moment. He started reading.

"I Googled what to do with a large position in one equity and then became acquainted with the exchange fund idea," he says. "I Googled more in terms of exchange funds and looked at a few."

He found Cache through that research. What stood out wasn't just the product.

"I was attracted to you guys," he says. "I thought, hey, here's a startup. These guys seem to be energetic. They have a great vision. I thought I'll probably get more attention since it is kind of a startup venture than going with something that's been established and around for many, many years."

He's direct about the risk profile.

"I guess I'm always a bit of a risk taker," he says. "But I thought I'm going to go with these guys and just hope that their startup energy and ingenuity will pay off."

The real question: how much

Joel's decision wasn't whether to diversify. It was how much. He still believed in Apple. He'd watched it recover before.

"Do I put it all in? Do I put half of it in?" he says. "Because it seems like whenever I bet against Apple over the years, it's been a bad bet."

He landed on 75 percent.

"I thought, I'm gonna trust them with more than less," he says. "That leaves me with a quarter of my position. If Apple does incredible things, I've still got a position in that one equity. But yet 75% of my funds there will be spread out in a much better way."

In February 2025, he moved about $750,000 of his Apple position into the fund. He tracks the numbers.

"Had I left it in Apple, I think we would have been up maybe 8 percent," he says, "but having put it with the exchange fund over that same period of time, I think the fund is up 23 percent."

But the return wasn't the point. The weight was.

"Once I made the decision, there's a sense of relief that, man, I'm out from under such a huge investment in this one company," he says.

He still watches Apple. Still enjoys it. The difference is the pressure.

"There was a real sense of release, a sense of some of the anxiety is gone," he says. "I trust them. I'm not going to worry about it."

Then he adds: "It really did release a lot of anxiety."

What he tells friends

Joel has friends in similar positions. His advice is simple.

"Take some or all of your large position, put it with them. You won't have everything in that one basket anymore. It'll help you sleep better at night."