String of gains broken

[Texas Proud]

Well, I did not want to say anything about this earlier as I thought I would jink it...

But, my string of months with a positive gain was snapped at 15.... that is the longest string of monthly gains that I can see and also the longest I remember...

I cannot feel bad about it since at one point I was down big this month when the big drops occured but got about 2/3rd of that back by the end of the month...

I assume that most people had a loss this month.... anybody happen to make money?


Here is hoping another string is starting in March....

 

[NW-Bound]

If an investor does indexing or has a reasonably diversified portfolio, he is highly likely to lose money in February. The only question is how much he lost.

Stocks that gained in February can be counted on one's fingers: Apple, Amazon, Boeing, Cisco, Mastercard, and a few more.

Stocks that lost big, more than -5% and up to -10%, include: Home Depot, Verizon, Johnson and Johnson, Exxon Mobile, CocaCola, Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Merk, etc... This list is much longer than the earlier one.

 

[Lakewood90712]

Ok now year to date, up or down ?

 

[NW-Bound]

YTD results are reported in another thread:

http://www.early-retirement.org/for...t-performance-thread-90118-2.html#post2018999

I'm down for the month, but less than 1%...

If you are down less than 1% for the month, you or your MF managers are good stock pickers. Or you are very heavily in cash.

The stock index is down -4.6% for Feb. The bond index is down -1.4%.

The two balanced MFs that many forum posters have, Wellesley and Wellington, are down -3.6% and -4.9% for the month, respectively.

 

[NW-Bound]

I am impressed. But is it for the month of February or YTD? Huge difference.

Perhaps you load your portfolio with Amazon, Apple, and Boeing?

PS. Oh, if you are putting new money (from pension or SS) into your stash, then that is not investment return.

 

[NW-Bound]

No, I did not pick on your portfolio. I am really impressed, because you lost less than both stock and bond indices. I thought you would share your MF or stock pick.

As for me, I lost -3.73% in February as reported in the other thread. I linked to that thread in the above post.

It's roughly inline with the S&P which lost -4.6%, and my AA which is 70% stock. Nothing unusual here. I have 23% cash. If I had bonds, it would be worse.

I assume that most people had a loss this month.... anybody happen to make money?...

The OP was talking about investment return. And so, that's what I was curious about.

 

[audreyh1]

Well, I did not want to say anything about this earlier as I thought I would jink it...

But, my string of months with a positive gain was snapped at 15.... that is the longest string of monthly gains that I can see and also the longest I remember...

I cannot feel bad about it since at one point I was down big this month when the big drops occured but got about 2/3rd of that back by the end of the month...

I assume that most people had a loss this month.... anybody happen to make money?


Here is hoping another string is starting in March....

The statistic I saw today was longest string since 1959. A headline flashed by.

Oh here it is - and that was for the DOW and S&P and they said both 10 month winning streaks: Dow closes 380 points lower, snaps longest monthly win streak since 1959

 

[NW-Bound]

Wow, that must be awful. So sorry that you lost almost 4% in February alone. I am sure you will regain it in some other month. There is plenty of volatility to be had, especially in 2018 it seems...

No, don't be sorry. I am not.

As I wrote above, many stocks are down -10% this month. Even the S&P is down -4.6%.

I am doing quite well, compared to Wellington and Wellesley for example, both for the month and for YTD because I have very little bond.

 

[MarieIG]

I did NOT make money. I can't tell you how much I lost (don't do that spreadsheet thing - yet), but it isn't pretty. I saw OPs list of the top losers, which prompted me to check. Yep, I have separate holdings in four of the top ten losers.

 

[NW-Bound]

I did NOT make money. I can't tell you how much I lost (don't do that spreadsheet thing - yet), but it isn't pretty. I saw OPs list of the top losers, which prompted me to check. Yep, I have separate holdings in four of the top ten losers.

If you use Quicken, one glance of its screen and you'll know what's hurting you, and what's helping. No spreadsheet needed.

For example, I can tell right away that the shiner in my portfolio is MU (Micron), which was up more than 11% for the month.

However, I do not have enough of that to cancel out losers for the month like Cummins (CMI), which is down nearly 13% in Feb.

Well, next month, maybe the order will reverse. The winners will become losers, and vice versa. Just like my favorite song by Dylan, "The Times They Are a'Changin'".

 

[NW-Bound]

By the way, I have a bit of Wellesley, Wellington, and Dodge & Cox Balanced (as well as some other MFs). Thought that when I am tired of doing my own trading, I will divide my money into these balanced funds and call it quit.

Having them in the portfolio means I can see their performance on the Quicken screen along with the rest of my holding. It is interesting to me to see how different MFs and stocks perform relative to one another. Or how different sectors move.

It's like watching a never ending horse race.

 

[NW-Bound]

As described above, I do have Wellesley and Wellington MFs in my Vanguard accounts, and they do show up on my Quicken screen for comparison to the rest of my holdings.

Quicken can rank the performance of my holdings (stocks/bonds/MF/options) in 1-day, 1-month, 3-month intervals, etc... I find it convenient to spot trends that way (not that I can use the trend reliably).

PS. I use Quicken to track holdings in his/her Roth/IRA/401k/brokerage accounts. It lets me see at a glance all my positions without logging into the different institutions individually. And of course it downloads all the transactions, dividends, etc... for me and adds them up in a report. And it also lets me see my expenses too, from all different bank and credit card accounts.

 

[NW-Bound]

I did, and did not see what Quicken does not tell me already about the historical NAV price (which is also reported everywhere on the Web).

I am a Vanguard member too, you know. I have 3 accounts with them.

 

[Texas Proud]

My Feb loss at Vanguard was 2.26%... Does not include my 401 account which probably was a smaller loss as the majority holding was basically the same price at the end as the beginning...

I did check.... 11 months ago I had a .25% gain, but it was a gain!!

It was good while it lasted, and as I said I hope it starts a new one....

 

[DrRoy]

I had a similar long, good run. Down in Feb but up for the year. It's just a normal correction. Happens yearly on average.

 

[joeea]

But, my string of months with a positive gain was snapped at 15.... that is the longest string of monthly gains that I can see and also the longest I remember...

I don't measure my portfolio on monthly boundaries, just as I don't measure it based on daily or hourly boundaries.

Instead I use a complex formula based on an extensive series of metrics I like to call "when I can be bothered to look".

By my metrics, I'm doing just fine.

 

[Andre1969]

I had a slight pullback in March 2017, so my run is only 10 consecutive months of gains. I'm not sure if that's my record, or not though. I changed the way I keep my data starting in late 2011. Prior to that, I'd track new peaks and lows of the month, rather than just the value on the ending day. But in 2011, I simply tracked the ending day.

Anyway, I did have a good run, from February 2005 until I peaked out on May 9, 2006. I don't know how May actually ended, but by June 14, I was down about 11%. So, that was about a 17-18 month run. In those days, I didn't always keep a data point for every month, if it was a fairly boring stretch. I only have 12 data points for that timeframe, so that's not even one per month, so there might have been a down period here and there. I do remember that being a pretty good time for the market, in general, though.

Oh, and as of yesterday's close, even though February was a down month, I'm still up around 1.4% for the year. I think I had been up around 5.1% at the end of January, but still, it could be worse

 

[Islandtraveler]

Would have had a sixteen month run if not for a marginal hiccup in March of 17. A 10 month run still ain't bad.

 

[exnavynuke]

401k results:

-3.89% for February.
+1.26% on the year total

I haven't calculated brokerage account returns but they should be in the same ballpark.

 

[Texas Proud]

On keeping track of the gains, since it has been mentioned a couple of times...

I am only looking at monthly because Vanguard shows that in their graph... I do not keep track on my own... I do not use Quicken or have a spreadsheet to look at gains... well, I do have one that shows annual gains, but I have not updated it in the past 3 or 4 years..... I also have one on my trading of pref shares where I am trying to goose my gain... but that is only about $15K.... otherwise, I just look at the total...

 

[kgtest]

I had a similar long, good run. Down in Feb but up for the year. It's just a normal correction. Happens yearly on average.

I had a 26 month streak that ended in February. 1 down month out of 26. I'll take that for the rest of my life, please and thank you. And I was only down just over 1.5pts, so not too bad.

Something like a 9year bull run.

 

[NW-Bound]

I am not a day trader, not because I have anything against it but because I am not good.

However, I am an opportunistic market timer, er, rebalancer. In volatile markets, you blink, you miss it.

I do not pull the trigger at anything that moves, but when something ridiculous happens, I do not want to miss it. I hate the crazy mob, and always want to bet against it. You do not know what crazy people do if you do not watch them.

 

[redduck]

String of Six

Stocks that lost big, more than -5% and up to -10%, include: Home Depot, Verizon, Johnson and Johnson, Exxon Mobile, CocaCola, Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Merk, etc... This list is much longer than the earlier one.

note: bolding above by redduck

Talking about strings: I own the six stocks that you strung together. Can't thank you enough for making it so easy to see why I did so poorly in Feb.

 

[NW-Bound]

You are welcome.

Indexing or buying MFs is like eating sausage without knowing how it's made.

Owning individual stocks is like making your own sausage, and knowing what goes into it. Not for the faint of heart.

If it is of any consolation to you, some of the high flyers in Feb are under pressure today too. Boeing down -3.3% at this moment, Amazon down -1.5%, Apple down -2%.

 

[Andre1969]

You are welcome.

If it is of any consolation to you, some of the high flyers in Feb are under pressure today too. Boeing down -3.3% at this moment, Amazon down -1.5%, Apple down -2%.

Funny you'd mention those three, as they were that last stocks I made trades on. I sold off a little of the stock in my old Boeing 401k, and transferred it to their SP500 fund. Also sold off a bit of Apple, and Amazon, as they started getting up there in price.

I had planned on selling a bit of Amazon when it broke $1500, and set the limit at $1501, just for good measure. It closed at $1500 that day, as I recall, so no sale. I had forgotten about it, but then looked again, saw it was at $1517, and went ahead and sold.

None of these were actually earth-shattering trades, but when prices get this high, I do like to do a little bit of cashing in.