How did your portfolio do in 2010 ?

[clifp]

It was a hell of year for me and obviously a good year to have an aggressive portfolio of 85/15.

My IRAs which I like to use as a baseline because there are no withdrawals was up 18%.
My liquid assets were up a modest 7.4%. However, I started the year with 240K in mortgage debt which is all gone. So my liquid assets increased by 16.6% after living expenses.

According to the county assessor my house rose 2% which help push my total net worth to an all time high barely exceeding my previous best in 2005 and when I retired in 1999.

My dividend and interest income was also up by 5%, which is gratifying but it is still 10%+ below 2006-2008 level due to the large number of dividend cuts in 2008 and plunging interest rates.

I am grateful for this board because there is no other place I can gloat. I have several friends out of work, one of my sister and couple of friends moved most of their savings out of stocks and either cash or bonds. To say it would be unseemly to talk about a great year for me this was financially would be an understatement. Anyway I can appreciate when they say that recession has ended for Wall St. but not for main street, and I guess I must be part of Wall St.

 

[Spanky]

That surely is a long list.

And I thought that I was already too greedy.

But philosophically, why wanting more money is called greed, but desire of other "things" is OK? Of course I am not talking about altruistic things like world peace and such.

"Greed" is an attempt to possess more than one needs or deserves while "desire" is wanting something passionately. In Buddhism, the distinction between greed and desire, however, is artificial. Craving passionately (for anything) is a hindrance toward happiness.

 

[Koolau]

OK, anyone in a cash position, how did you do?

Anyone hear from Dex?



My port still hovers at about 70% fixed despite my pathetic efforts to dip my toe deeper into the equity markets. The good news is that the total port was pretty stable over the '07 to '09 unpleasantness (due to my low exposure to equities and decent performing fixed - oh, and my ballast of a few lb of gold and couple hundred pounds of silver. Thanks, dad!! )

The fixed portion of my port is at about 3% for the year. My I Bonds are less than 4 and the biggest portion of my fixed is almost exactly 2 in my GIF. My insurance products (including a 25 year old SPDA) are a bit above 4% (due to guarantees from many years ago).

The equity portion of my port, I haven't calculated yet, but I'm guessing it's in the very low double digit range as most are in Vanguard (S&P 500, Tot Stock mkt., emerging markets, total Euro ex-US, etc). Oh, and DW's psssst. Wellesley (and Wellington, heh, heh). We combine our funds into THE PORT as opposed to a her's and mine.

I'm happy for those with total port increases in the 15+% range. I'll admit to just a touch of jealousy (or maybe it's really more a feeling of regret that I didn't have more courage like the rest of the group). Still, I can survive on a 2% or so SWR and haven't taken my SS yet. I'd like to think I'm in the "sweet spot" of AA. Whether that turns out to be true will only be known by looking in the rear view mirror. In any case, I'm SWAGing the total port performance for 2010 at about 5 - 6%. Since my stash is "enough" (Is there such a thing?), I don't see the need to push it at this point. Of course, YMMV.

 

[Sue J]

I am grateful for this board because there is no other place I can gloat.

I enjoy the gloating posts. It's the way we learn from other's successes.

I also love the ones where people say they need to spend more money.

 

[REWahoo]

Anyone hear from Dex?

I'm thinking he saw this thread....http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/end-of-the-world-may-21-2011-a-53972.html ...and is out spending his cash.

 

[W2R]

I was not sure how to compute this, but audreyh1's post seems like a pretty reasonable start:

One reasonable way to do it is:
ROI % for the year = [final portfolio number/(starting number + new contributions during the year) - 1] x 100

Thus your final number is not inflated by the contributions during the year, yet you assume all gains were due the start of the year investments which IMO is "good enough".

This is how Quicken computes ROI.

Audrey

I am in distribution phase so instead of adding new contributions during the year, I subtracted withdrawals during the year.

Using audreyh1's method this way, my answer is 12.72% (45:55 equities:fixed)

After 2008-2009, I am pretty happy about this!

 

[audreyh1]

I was not sure how to compute this, but audreyh1's post seems like a pretty reasonable start:



I am in distribution phase so instead of adding new contributions during the year, I subtracted withdrawals during the year.

Using audreyh1's method this way, my answer is 12.72% (45:55 equities:fixed)

After 2008-2009, I am pretty happy about this!

Here is how Quicken handles that scenario. It basically adds any withdrawals to the final portfolio number to compute ROI.

ROI % for the year = [(final portfolio number + withdrawals during the year)/starting number - 1] x 100

Audrey

 

[W2R]

Here is how Quicken handles that scenario. It basically adds any withdrawals to the final portfolio number to compute ROI.

ROI % for the year = [(final portfolio number + withdrawals during the year)/starting number - 1] x 100

Audrey

Thank you!!

That comes to 10.53%, (45:55 equities:fixed).
I'm still pretty happy and still dancing along with this little emoticon:

 

[Dawg52]

Using Fidelity's calculator, right at 9.5%. Not bad with a 25/75 allocation. My equities are mostly individual stocks.

 

[Spanky]

I was not sure how to compute this, but audreyh1's post seems like a pretty reasonable start:



I am in distribution phase so instead of adding new contributions during the year, I subtracted withdrawals during the year.

Using audreyh1's method this way, my answer is 12.72% (45:55 equities:fixed)

After 2008-2009, I am pretty happy about this!

12.72% is a good return. You may want to include dividends, if any, as new contributions.

 

[torres9]

Thanks Audrey!
So then my return was 12 percent! Great as I'm hoping for 6 percent annually.

Portfolio is 62 stock, 25 bonds, rest cash.

torres9

 

[Spanky]

Using Fidelity's calculator, right at 9.5%. Not bad with a 25/75 allocation. My equities are mostly individual stocks.

Agreed - not bad. Your return on equity is about 19% (which is better than the total us market and S&P 500 fund) if a return of 6.5% on fixed income is assumed.

 

[akck]

I'm up 17.5% for the year. That includes going through part of the year with 35% in cash. Portfolio currently 60% equities, 30% FI and 10% cash.

 

[dessert]

My 401K is up 17.6%, 79/13/8. My non-qualified account is up 4.13%. It has a lot of fixed income in it. I have recently moved more of that into the market as I expect it to continue to move up in 2011.

 

[audreyh1]

12.72% is a good return. You may want to include dividends, if any, as new contributions.

No - you don't have to include the dividends as new contributions - they are not. They are part of the total return for the year - part of your portfolio gain.

The dividends should be part of the final total portfolio number unless you withdrew them from the portfolio, in which case you need to add them back in to the final number as withdrawals.

Audrey

 

[Spanky]

No - you don't have to include the dividends as new contributions - they are not. They are part of the total return for the year - part of your portfolio gain.

The dividends should be part of the final total portfolio number unless you withdrew them from the portfolio, in which case you need to add them back in to the final number as withdrawals.

Audrey

You are right - my mistake.

The quick ROI formulas are very good except they may underestimate returns (albeit very, very little) as the time period over which money is invested into account or withdrawn from the account is ignored, assuming all deposits are invested at once, in January or all withdrawals are performed in December.

 

[dm]

I'm up around 15% give or take a little. The net worth is up about 5.5% after spending way more than I should have.

 

[Animorph]

Up 20.2%, all equities slice and dice with a little cash towards the end of the year.

 

[audreyh1]

The quick ROI formulas are very good except they may underestimate returns (albeit very, very little) as the time period over which money is invested into account or withdrawn from the account is ignored, assuming all deposits are invested at once, in January or all withdrawals are performed in December.

That's right, but you would have to do a much, much more complex calculation that would increase with the number of additions or withdrawals per year. You might even start having to use calculus!

If contributions or withdrawals are even throughout the year it might be easier to get a closer approximation - even though the market performance is not even throughout the year.

But I suspect it's not worth the extra effort. An approximation is usually good enough.

Audrey

 

[sheehs1]

Liquid Net Worth up 13.8% for 2010 which includes additional savings.

Allocations changed thruout the year rolling from bond funds to more equities around the August time frame. The allocation roughly for the most part was 50% CDs, 40% in equities and bonds and 10% outright cash (still have memories of 2007/2008).

The bond/ equity portfolio is up 14.18% for the year using Audreys calculation.
The CD fixed income side is up 5%. The rest of the net worth increase came from the additional savings.

 

[79protons]

My IRA was up 256% for 2010...I did a lot of trading lol. Etrade commisions were $1453.00!!!

Might go a bit more conservative in 2011.

 

[Eder]

I'm down ~17% this year.
My allocation was 40% stocks, 40% bonds, 20% new kick ass diesel pusher tag axel'd motorhome I'm still driving around in circles with.

I think I win.... no?

 

[NW-Bound]

Eh, if your diesel pusher is part of the AA, then your portfolio should not be considered down that much. No?

 

[Eder]

I took a 1 time charge....(to quote a notorious popular CAN bank)

 

[MDJO]

Took another look at my retirement accounts....calculator is saying 17.87% for 2010, all index funds.

Non qualified was less, but I had a fair amount of cash and income producing holdings in there