2014 Investment Returns

[Cobra9777]

Overall 9.3% on balanced portfolio: 45% stock, 35% bonds, 15% real estate, and 5% cash. Stock allocation was 12.7%, a little below the S&P 500 due to lagging international returns. Bond allocation, which is dominated by AGG and LQD, did surprisingly well at 6.4%. Real estate was 7.8% and cash was 0.7%. Definitely a good year.

 

[clifp]

I was quite happy and somewhat surprise how well this year turned out.
Schwab put my time weight returns at 14.6% Comfortable exceeding the moderately aggressive benchmark 80/15/5 (20% international) of 6.8, with a risk level a fraction higher than the benchmark.

My top two portfolio holdings Berkshire and Intel were up 26% and 43% respectively which more than made up for my not successful attempt at market timing, and some other bonehead moves in the 4th quarter.

I've been investing (along with Nords) in mostly Hawaii startup (Angel investing) since 2006. So far the track record has been pretty poor (some good tax credits early on), a couple of outright bankruptcies, and bunch while still surviving still face tough challenges. This year one of the companies hit a home run. They paid out a cash dividend (actually in Jan so it's not part of my calculations) that greatly exceeded all of my investments in the company. The stock price has increase 5 fold. Fortunately, it was the company I was most optimistic about and invested every chance I got and so single handily turned my Angel investing from an expensive hobby to a profitable one.
This led to an increase in my liquid net worth by 17.9% despite spending like a 1/2 drunk sailor most of the year.

Finally I had real estate appreciation according to Zillow in the low double digits leading to an overall increase in my net worth of 15.0%

At the risk of being obnoxious I added a million to my net worth in less than 15 months. (But if I can't boast on the ER board...where can I )

 

[Live Free]

7.6 with a 70/30 AA.

 

[heeyy_joe]

60% Stocks, 20% Bonds, 20% cash, 12% return, REPEAT!

 

[Trix55]

6.75%. I 'fired' my financial adviser in July and moved my TIra and Roth Ira to Vanguard. I turned 59 recently and just did the first partial rollover of my 401k from the employers custodian to my Vanguard Roth Ira. I'm looking forward to a better 2015!

 

[aida2003]

Well, I think I'm in a 'dumb' field because I don't know how to calculate the return on our total portfolio and I don't trust to link our accounts to some website to aggregate it.
I just saw that my DH's 401k of 75/25 had 7.2% return. Mostly Vanguard idx funds. My 401k had a bit higher return, but it also has a higher expense ratio. It's mostly TRRDX and a bit of New Horizons trust fund.

But we also have Roth IRA's, CD's, I-bonds, and a good chunk of taxable investments in blue-chip div. stocks, VTSAX, VFWAX, and DODGX.

Our net worth increased, but no clue by how much in percentage terms.

 

[wingfooted]

How does one go about achieving a 29.6% rate of return?

I'm running this after tax brokerage account like a mini hedge fund. Long, short, individual stocks, options, margin, covered, naked, write, spreads - yes to all.

When it works, and you guess right, it can be very profitable to invest in this manner.

The downside is the day to day volatility is very stressful and there a lot of emotional highs and lows. Due to geographic location, the markets in NY open at around 3 PM for me and close at 10 PM. So it is easy to keep watch on how things are going and adjust accordingly on virtually a tick for tick basis.

 

[longinvest]

Using the BogleheadsWiki:Calculating personal returns spreadsheet:

PORTFOLIO RETURN (time-weighted returns, comparable returns)

Portfolio return as of 12-31-2014
YTD 8.92%

 

[Nords]

I haven't tracked our returns this year, but it's mostly up. Nothing needed rebalancing, but next week I'm going to buy some more international value ETF shares (iShares MSCI EAFE Value, EFV) with IRA dividend cash.

My top two portfolio holdings Berkshire and Intel were up 26% and 43% respectively which more than made up for my not successful attempt at market timing, and some other bonehead moves in the 4th quarter.

Berkshire has been very good to shareholders this year!

I'm beginning to think that I should stop rebalancing that stock... stop giving it away or selling it... and just hold on to the shares for the rest of my life.

I've been investing (along with Nords) in mostly Hawaii startup (Angel investing) since 2006. So far the track record has been pretty poor (some good tax credits early on), a couple of outright bankruptcies, and bunch while still surviving still face tough challenges. This year one of the companies hit a home run. They paid out a cash dividend (actually in Jan so it's not part of my calculations) that greatly exceeded all of my investments in the company. The stock price has increase 5 fold. Fortunately, it was the company I was most optimistic about and invested every chance I got and so single handily turned my Angel investing from an expensive hobby to a profitable one.
This led to an increase in my liquid net worth by 17.9% despite spending like a 1/2 drunk sailor most of the year.

That was a huge win-- congratulations!
If I went back in time to the day when I could buy that investment, I'd still shake my head at the political risk and walk away. I'm glad that turned around your portfolio!

Four of my nine have ceased operations, so that greatly simplifies the tracking of my remaining angel investments. Oboy.

At the risk of being obnoxious I added a million to my net worth in less than 15 months. (But if I can't boast on the ER board...where can I )

Hawaii real estate values are (once again) going nuts. It really seems unfair to raise the rent on our tenants for the second year in a row, but the state has not hesitated to do the same with property assessments...

 

[Chuckanut]

Up 6.6% for the year overall. Not bad considering that a good percentage of my assets is in lower yielding CD's and such.

As a comparison I noticed that PSSSST......Wellesley was up about 8%.

 

[fidler4]

I'm too lazy to do my total portfolio... and my old 401k had contributions (since I retired in June)... and my investment account had both contributions/withdrawals during the year... The math gets too complicated.

But I have one rolled 401k/IRA that has a nice chunk of money in it. I got 8.2%. I have another, much smaller, but a lot of international as a percentage - only 6.8%

I also have some CD's that got 2.25%.

Again - too lazy to combine those and get the overall percentage of all my accounts that didn't have contributions or withdrawals.

+ 1.


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[RobLJ]

I may take the low at 5.5% (60-25-15): international and emerging market--40% of equity allocation--took a toll this year.

 

[Andre1969]

I ended up the year up about 5.6%. Would have done better, but I had some money invested in a gold fund, which got whacked. And a couple of overseas funds that got hit, and some energy funds that got slammed toward the end of the year.


It's far cry from the 23.1% I got in 2013 and 15.9% in 2012, but I'll still take it! It could be worse...there were a few times during the year I had actually gone negative!

 

[KingB]

7.62% on a 49/51 AA.

 

[Greg V]

3.5% on a 50/50 AA...strong international tilt plus some emerging markets was a bit of a drag. However, the race is a long one...congrats to the big winners this past year.

 

[fh2000]

Not retired yet.

Some of my large single stock holdings did not move much: Ebay.
Some even went down: GE, GOOG/GOOGL.

Out of total asset gain of 12%, my investment return subcontracting contributions, savings, and giving, is about 5%.

 

[Midpack]

I only did 5.9%. Did OK on fixed income, though moving more into short duration hurt some. Good returns on most equity funds, stellar on REIT (though very small %) BUT gave quite a bit back on Intl, EM & Energy Sector funds. But no changes planned...

 

[rodi]

I'm too lazy to do my total portfolio... and my old 401k had contributions (since I retired in June)... and my investment account had both contributions/withdrawals during the year... The math gets too complicated.

,

Ok - I used that downloaded bogleheads spreadsheet linked above - (I outsourced the math, in other words)... I input all my 401k contributions, and input my withdrawals (I took a chunk out of investments to pay off the mortgage and to set aside for our big vacation and planned home improvements.) With all that - my portfolio got a 9.52 portfolio return, 9.51% investor return.

Sweet.

 

[audreyh1]

Up a little over 5% on a 53% equity portfolio. It's well diversified, which means I only have about 14% of the portfolio in US large cap which did so well in 2014. My REIT funds did super well. Bond funds overall did quite nicely for 2014.

In rebalancing I am adding to my international funds.

I don't hold high yield, emerging markets, or energy as asset classes, and 2014 was a good year to avoid them. Of course some of my funds have positions in them.

 

[bingybear]

I know this will sound stupid... I've never calculated my annual investment returns....

think I'll make it in ER?

 

[jazz4cash]

I know this will sound stupid... I've never calculated my annual investment returns....

think I'll make it in ER?

Does not sound stupid to me....people calculate thier returns for various reasons, but as long as you know your goal and are making progress at a reasonable rate it doesn't really matter. OTOH if you want to optimize your gains, you do have choices about how to do so and it's valuable to see if your choices are tracking to some benchmark. All our retirement plans post the return for individual accounts in the annual statement, so it's not really necessary to do anything to see your results. That said, I do know some folks that don't even look at thier statements.

 

[cbo111]

I know this will sound stupid... I've never calculated my annual investment returns....



think I'll make it in ER?

I'm with you bingybear. Trying to calculate an accurate gain would be difficult. So many of you have it to a decimal point accuracy...I can only applaud and stand in awe!



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[bingybear]

I just eye the balance... and guess if I'm on track.

I could easily calculate the gain... just haven't cared to. The absolute return is not the important point... If I can FIRE is what is important

 

[Gumby]

8.25% with a roughly 65/35 split.

 

[Rustward]

8.9% net across all our accounts most of which are wrap accounts holding mostly managed funds, two ETFs, and 50 individual stocks.