2015 YTD investment performance thread

1.7% on 63% equities, 16% bonds, 18% hard assets, 3% cash. Much of that is external to the US.
 
Andre1969 said:
I did a lot of short term trading in 2014 and it came back to bite me on the butt, come tax time. I'm only in the 25% marginal bracket, and overall, my total federal tax bill was only about 11.7% of AGI. But, it was still a shock, when I found out just how much I still had to cough up. I usually owe about $2-3K on federal taxes, and usually get back around $500-1000 on the state/local. But this time around, the bill was around $8500 for federal and $2200 state/local!

I'm trying to chill out on the short term stuff this year.
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Hey now, Andre...Don't minimize the pain of a 25% tax bracketer, because I am one too and it feels painful especially after tossing in the 6% bones the state gets. :)
As you know the 11.7% AGI numbers means little because this tax is coming from the top number not an average number. They say don't let the tax tail wag the dog. But I do.... No CDs and bonds for me anymore after giving up 31% of very little for too long. I take my chances with preferred stocks for the yield and pay the 15% fed rate.


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After the latest job growth report, and it's likely impact on Fed rate hike, we may have a little time before that big slide....
 
2.13% return on 70/30, but additional 1.86% added to balances in frenzy to max deferrals before mid-year ER.
 
Niuatoputapu said:
...added to balances in frenzy to max deferrals before mid-year ER.
Click to expand...
My 1.7% is actually is "everything". So on the plus side are gains and on the minus side is the spending. The calculation with everything is easiest...add up all the balances on 12/31 and then again on 3/31. No adjustments required for shifts into or out of "spending accounts". But I suppose I might be able to increase the rate a bit by adjusting for spending, but isn't worth it...after all, this is just a "gee whiz" exercise (nothing actionable comes out of it).
 
It would never have occurred to me to check at such a short interval, but looking at the accounts I have a 3% return on my roughly 60/40 portfolio YTD. That's nice, but not really significant IMHO.
 
LifeIs said:
most of ours have been in the vanguard healthcare fund 9.64 YTD:dance:
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We have held this fund since 1990. The performance is awesome, but our allocation to this fund is relatively small. In hindsight, we should have shifted more $$ into it. ;)
 
This is a good thread.
It motivated me to put my "outside account" information on the Vanguard page of Balances & Holdings....what an eye opener! :facepalm:

Anyhoo....I have a 3.5% return first quarter on a apprx 60/40 portfolio. The bad news is way over bought in Biotech - which explains why I beat the market. Also my small caps got back in the game...so that helped.

If U guys think a 25% tax bracket is bad...I'm retired & in a 33% + tax bracket! OUCH!!:mad: (Interest income on Owner Contracts)

I thought I had done a good job keeping the investments in tax mitigating places...like munis & index funds...but I now see I can do better....Live & Learn...;)
 
NW Landlady said:
This is a good thread.
The bad news is way over bought in Biotech - which explains why I beat the market. Also my small caps got back in the game...so that helped.
...;)
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If you beat the market - because you had good individual stock picks in biotech and small caps - why is that bad news ? I would opinion that it is a reason for a pat on the back / celebration ?





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NW Landlady said:
... The bad news is way over bought in Biotech - which explains why I beat the market. Also my small caps got back in the game...so that helped.
Click to expand...

It is never bad to be in the right sector. :cool:

The only problem is if one fails to get out at the top, and gives up all the gain. ;)

Or perhaps biotech will keep going higher and higher, and one never has to sell. :)
 
braumeister said:
It would never have occurred to me to check at such a short interval... <snip>
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I agree that the first quarter's results aren't a very good predictor of year-end but I find that it helps every quarter or so to look at what the portfolio has done vs. the market and explain any differences. I'm not in one of those "set it and forget it" mixes of Index funds (yeah, shame on me) so I want to make sure that there are no adjustments I need to make. Our Berkshire dropped 5%, as I mentioned earlier. No reason to dump it, but a good explanation of why we underperformed compared to some of the rest of the people here.
 
eta2020 said:
I know I had exactly 1.7 million in invest-able assets about 4 years ago. I also know I have today plus and minus 50k 3.22 million in invest-able assets.
.
I don't look at 3 months results because it makes no sense...... I think I made about 2% last 3 months but do not quote me on it.

But you can quote me on making 90% in last 48 months.
Click to expand...

Congratulations on your performance. Given these gains, do you think about moving a portion out of equities as you approach ER? If I were in your shoes, it would be very tempting to me to do so.
 
Mulligan said:
Hey now, Andre...Don't minimize the pain of a 25% tax bracketer, because I am one too and it feels painful especially after tossing in the 6% bones the state gets. :)
As you know the 11.7% AGI numbers means little because this tax is coming from the top number not an average number. They say don't let the tax tail wag the dog. But I do.... No CDs and bonds for me anymore after giving up 31% of very little for too long. I take my chances with preferred stocks for the yield and pay the 15% fed rate.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

The state of Maryland hit me for about 7%, in addition to that 11.7% of AGI I shelled out (or am about to, since I haven't paid it yet) for Federal. Maryland's tax rates don't seem so bad when you look them up online, topping out at 5.75%, but there's also county tax on top of that. It varies by county, but in my case it's 3.2%.

I just pulled my 2013 taxes, and one reason my bill was so bad this year was that my AGI went up about $47K, compared to last year. :eek: I knew it would be more than 2013, but had no idea it would be that much more! Also, while a lot of that was thanks to excessive trading, it turns out that a good deal of it was also from LT capital gains. I had a few mutual funds that declared a lot more than they normally do.

I'm wondering if I should start paying estimated taxes. It might lessen the pain somewhat, by spreading it out over the year.
 
sengsational said:
My 1.7% is actually is "everything". So on the plus side are gains and on the minus side is the spending. The calculation with everything is easiest...add up all the balances on 12/31 and then again on 3/31. No adjustments required for shifts into or out of "spending accounts". But I suppose I might be able to increase the rate a bit by adjusting for spending, but isn't worth it...after all, this is just a "gee whiz" exercise (nothing actionable comes out of it).
Click to expand...
The only time I do the IRR calculation is on the quarter ends, and it came out to an annualized IRR of 9.7%! One might expect it would fall closer to 1.7% times 4*, right? But it turned out I had a lot more spending than average clumped in early January.


* Or for the more precision minded: (.017+1)^4 - 1
 
I never do IRR. I only look at year-to-date ROI.

annualized IRR is meaningless, IMO.
 
3.46, due to overperformance of biotech, international, and international small cap (63-23-14). Begins to compensate for the underperformance the last 2 years when the S&P creamed everything. Stick to your allocations! I keep selling biotech but it keeps going up.
 
Since you ask, here's what Quicken shows me for Q1 of 2015. The result is of my total portfolio, with cash AA of 25%, bond of 6%, and stock of 69%. Also, I have drawn 0.85% YTD to spend, else would be higher.

I look at my portfolio daily to see how it's doing. There are periods of time where I trailed the index badly, and times when I beat it soundly. For this period, I roughly tracked the S&P despite my AA.

 
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