Hey there. I'll answer the bottom question first. Absolutely we do. Most recently, we had Cascades (TSX:CAS) and TFI International (TSX:TFII) on our Bull list picks. We removed both of them after some solid gains. We have 3 statuses here on our bull list. "Bullish" "Neutral" and "Bearish". You can think of the statuses as essentially our overall opinion on the company, Bullish being a buy, Neutral being a hold and Bearish being a sell.
In terms of how many stocks you should hold, I feel it's simply the amount you can keep up with, up until a certain point. I see people who own 30....40 stocks even. At that point, just buy an ETF. I own 18 stocks. However, I'm working with stocks, researching them 8 hours a day. I have more than enough time and experience to maintain a portfolio of that size.
I can't speak on your individual situation, so I'll tell you what I did when I was a beginner just starting out. I owned an S&P 500 ETF, a global ETF and around 7 Canadian holdings. The ETF's were essentially on auto pilot, and from there I could really focus on improving my analysis skills, and making sure to keep up on quarterly reports from the 7 companies I owned. I found with a Monday-Friday job, this was the sweet spot in terms of time.
However, as I got better, I eventually I transitioned out of the ETF's and into individual stocks, and I also learned that some of my very early holdings (Telus, Enbridge, Fortis) I barely needed to look at the quarterlies, that's how strong those companies were.
So for me personally, I found great success in starting small, and building up. A lot of new investors get the urge to throw all their money in right away, and the end result is them holding 12-15 companies with not enough experience to know what to do from there.
An ETF can give you exposure to the market while you take a portion of your capital, buy some individual stocks and work on your overall skills.
Keep in mind, a well diversified portfolio goes well and beyond just this. You really need to factor in your overall risk tolerance and financial goals. It's something we really can't do for you here as we don't know anything about your financial position etc.