Let's brag about mid-year performance!

[Sam]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy Getting superstitious about jinxing the run.

This coming from a Chemical Engineer? That's funny.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by martyb I'm just wonderin' since my measly 7.53% has me feeling somewhat inadequate LOL!

My return is lower -- 6.5%.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiger 13.7% Cash - 12.33% U.S. Stocks - 35.03% Foreign Stocks - 23.31% Bonds - 28.42% Other - 0.90%

Very impressive! This allocation if invested in index funds would only return about 7%.

Alloc Fund Return Port Return
12.33% Money MKT 2.50% 0.3082500%
35.03% Total Stock 9.07% 3.1772210%
23.31% Total Intl 14.15% 3.2983650%
28.42% Total Bond 0.82% 0.2330440%
0.90% ?? ?? ??
7.0168800%

[Tandemlovers]

Up 11.4%:

US Stock Market 60%
International Stock 20%
Cash 20%

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREdreamer which return do you guys report? The actual YTD (%) return or the Average annual return (%) YTD? Depending on where you get your data from (Quicken, mutual fund company, FA's statement...), the numbers reported might not be comparable. My overall YTD (%) return is 8.2% but my Average annual return (%) YTD is 13.5%. I know the difference between the two, but which one are we using on this board?

I shoulda known that a board which can't even adopt a common definition of net worth wouldn't be able to handle the mid-year performance ambiguity.

5.6% YTD. I'm hoping that the rest of the year is flat!

[igsoy]

Okay, I have figured 12.05% YTD on our portfolio.

after gains our portfolio now stands at:
30% international
40% domestic (59%large, 11%mid, 30%small) (also 0%value, 31%blend, 69%growth)
4.8% bond
12.1% CD held in foreign currency (Euro/pound/Australian/New Zealand)
13.1% moneymarket/CD (would like to get half of this into the market, also may need to shell out for a new used car)

I've got one stock and an energy index and the international funds that have done gangbusters this year. I have another stock that went down a lot and is close to breaking even now, my bond fund dropped. Everything else domestic has beat S&P by some amount.

[unclemick]

Target Retirement 2015 - Vanguard site says 6.74%. That was easy.

Don't count my mad money male hormone individual stocks - cause I'm still canceling DRIPs and transferring - got a flaky 27% yr to yr(not ytd) when I try the performance analysis. Anywise - they don't count except as play money - unless I hit 'the one great stock' that buys the villa in the Bahamas.

heh heh heh .

[semtex]

Money amrket 2.5%
401k 8%
IRA(roth/rollover) 20%

[FIREd]

I have been thinking about the YTD return calculations outlined above by LOL! and I realized something: In a rising stock market environment, people who have contributed significant amounts of new money to their portfolio since the beginning of the year are almost surely bound to have lower returns than people who do not contribute to their nest egg anymore. I checked for my own portfolio. If I had not added any money this year to my wellington position, my YTD return would have been 6.66% according to quicken (which is pretty close to the YTD advertised by VG for wellington minus the ER). But because I bought quite a bit of wellington in april-june, my real YTD return for that very same fund is only 5.17% according to quicken (using the 1/1/2007-12/31/2007 time period). So having a comparatively low YTD return might not necessarely be due to poor investment and asset allocation choices, it might just be that you added a lot of new money to your portfolio at a time when the stock market was rising. So can we really compare each other's YTD returns (especially can we compare the YTD returns of those who have already retired and those who are still in the early accumulation phase)?

[LOL!]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREdreamer So can we really compare each other's YTD returns (especially can we compare the YTD returns of those who have already retired and those who are still in the early accumulation phase)?

I thought we were comparing returns to our benchmarks and not to each other?

[jdmorton]

For some reason, I've been tracking my 401(k) performance on a monthly basis this year. Normally, I just check it a couple of times a year and really just look at the year-to-year performance. June has been fairly wild. On May 31st, I had a return of 9.3%. The next day - June 1st - it was 9.8%. Sometime around the middle of June, it was 10.2%. On the last trading day of June (June 29), it was 8.9%.

Someplace, I wrote down the monthly returns, but as usual, I can't find where I put it

[FIREd]

Quote:

I thought we were comparing returns to our benchmarks and not to each other?

First I see plenty of people on this thread comparing their returns to each others'. But the problem remains even if you compare your returns to a benchmark: Let's assume somebody invests solely in a the VG 500 index fund which is tracking the S&P 500. According to Morningstar, as of 07/05/2007, the S&P500 is up 8.55% YTD. According to VG, if you had not invested any new money this year in the 500 index fund it would have returned 8.47% YTD (close to S&P500 YTD return - ER). But let's say you invested a lot of new money in this fund in April-June, according to quicken your YTD return will be lower, say 7%. So now you report your numbers and it looks like you did much worse than the index (7% as opposed to 8.55%), even though you have the exact same AA than the index and you own the exact same stocks than the index. So the retiree who owns the 500 index fund but doesn't add to it will report a 8.47% return (in line with the benchmark) but the youngster who added a lot of new money to the very same fund will report a 7% return (18% below the YTD return of the same benchmark).
So isn't the only true way to compare our YTD return to a meaningful benchmark for us NOT to use an off-the-shelf index but rather use an index we craft ourselves to fit the specifics of our portfolio (taking into account our own individual AA, but also the dates on which we bought or sold securities)?

[2soon2tell]

YTD 13% - 75% Equity- mostly funds /25% FI- MM, Treas, Non Hedged Intl Bond Fund

2soon

[LOL!]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FIREdreamer So isn't the only true way to compare our YTD return to a meaningful benchmark for us NOT to use an off-the-shelf index but rather use an index we craft ourselves to fit the specifics of our portfolio (taking into account our own individual AA, but also the dates on which we bought or sold securities)?

I see that if I sold a stock/fund earlier this year and run date range of 1/1 to 12/31, then MS Money makes the annual return outrageous. For example, my spouse sold a stock in her IRA after a 20% gain in first 3 weeks of the year. The "Annual % return" is 1225% when MSMoney is used with "current year" for that investment. Just a couple of situations like that will skew reported results.

Anyways, I can slice-and-dice my return calculations to get just about any number I want depending on the accounts, investments and dates chosen. That is, I can easily fool myself.

[retire@40]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LOL! I see that if I sold a stock/fund earlier this year and run date range of 1/1 to 12/31, then MS Money makes the annual return outrageous. For example, my spouse sold a stock in her IRA after a 20% gain in first 3 weeks of the year. The "Annual % return" is 1225% when MSMoney is used with "current year" for that investment. Just a couple of situations like that will skew reported results. Anyways, I can slice-and-dice my return calculations to get just about any number I want depending on the accounts, investments and dates chosen. That is, I can easily fool myself.

Nothing wrong with that method as long as you apply it to ALL of your investments.

That one stock that earned an APR of 1,225% may only be .05% of your overall portfolio, so you have to weight it as such.

That's why one can't just pick his IRA to calculate his ROI (unless all he has is an IRA). All investments, including cash in the checking account and cash under the mattress have to be included and weighted.

[mickeyd]

My AA is 60/35/5 and Vanguard says that I'm up 10.9% YTD; so that's my number.:confused:

[dmpi]

17% International
78% S&P 500
5% Cash & Fixed Income

Total about 7.4% YTD

[73ss454]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickeyd My AA is 60/35/5 and Vanguard says that I'm up 10.9% YTD; so that's my number.:confused:

Mickeyd, how do you check your year to date with vanguard? If you add any additional money it will through off the %. The full year from last July is not a problem but from Jan 1, I find it hard to calculate because of additional money added.

[mickeyd]

Quote:

Mickeyd, how do you check your year to date with vanguard?

I'm just quoting the Vanguard figure "as is" from the website. I seldom get involved in the "show me yours, and I'll show you mine" contests that are posted here from time to time as I am purely a long term investor and these short-term peeks at performance are meaningless IMHO.

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Quote:

Quote: Originally Posted by Ed_The_Gypsy Getting superstitious about jinxing the run. This coming from a Chemical Engineer? That's funny.

Hey, I am as crazy as anyone. (You should meet some of my colleagues!)