update on Wellesley and Intermediate-Term Bond fund

[karluk]

Originally Posted by obgyn65
Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason.



I don't think that will split out the equity portion of Wellesley which seems to be what he is asking for, since a couple of us pointed out that bond performance is what has held Wellesley down recently. And I don't know that there is a way to do that. It just seemed really obvious based on the performance of other bond funds over the same time period that this was the case for Wellesley.

What you did show was the best way to show the personal return of the OP's holding, rather than trying to extrapolate from the general performance graph of the fund.

I agree that there probably isn't any way to split out Wellesley's performance into separate equity and bond components, at least not based on information available on Vanguard's web site. But even without a precise breakdown it's certainly possible to make a reasonable estimate of the performance of Wellesley's bond holdings. They have a current yield of 2.7% with a duration of 6.0. That's in the same ballpark as VBIMX, so the bond component of Vanguard Wellesley almost certainly performed very similarly to VBIMX since Obgyn65 purchased his shares. Perhaps Wellesley's bonds lost a little less because of its shorter duration (6.0 vs. 6.5), but it probably wasn't a big difference.

https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=0027&FundIntExt=INT#tab=2

 

[pb4uski]

I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?

 

[karluk]

I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?

Obgyn65 can give you the exact numbers, if he so desires, but it's possible to make an educated guess as to his likely holdings. He started a thread after market close on March 5 entitled "Just bought $50,000 worth of Wellesley". He didn't explicitly say so, but the timing of the thread suggests that the purchase was made on 3/5 at that day's NAV of 60.29. If so, then he purchased 829.325 shares with his initial investment. In addition he has received additional shares from the March and June dividend. Assuming that he is reinvesting his dividends, I calculate that he got 5.895 shares from the March distribution and 6.929 shares in June. That's a total of 842.149 shares, which were worth $50,343.67 as of Friday's close. If I'm not making any significant errors in my calculations, he is just barely in the black on his purchase.

I find REWahoo's comment from the March 5 thread highly illuminating. He accurately foresaw that we would be having this followup discussion, as soon as Wellesley experienced even the smallest dip in NAV:

Interesting that you bought on the day the fund hit an all-time high.

You will do fine as long as you don't get nervous in a downturn and sell.

 

[Meadbh]

Obgyn, please don't take offence, but you are such a nervous Nellie about minor fluctuations in your investments that I have a hard time imagining you managing a complex delivery! Obstetric emergencies are much more scary IMHO.

 

[rbmrtn]

I am frugal by nature but don't spend like a pauper. My spending is only about average when comparing it to others here.

I only meant in regards to what you could be spending based on assets and income. Maybe I recalled wrong but I thought somewhere you had posted your assets and income, they were fairly substantial.

Now compared to me, you are probably a spendthift

 

[ERD50]

Do you know how I can check the performance of the equity portion ? The Vanguard performance page seems to give only an overall performance for some reason. ...

You are over-complicating this. Especially for someone who claims they have little time. Keep It Simple Stanley.

Wellesley is a balanced fund, they will not break out individual performance of the components. If you want to know how equities have performed in general, look at a full equity index fund like VTSMX, or an ETF like SPY.

But if you want to track your personal performance of your funds, don't look at charts, look at your Vanguard account on-line. You know what you paid, and it shows the current value. Couldn't be simpler. I assume you are having divs re-invested? If not, you need to add those back in to see total return. If you look at charts, most do not include divs, just NAV. And you likely cannot get the dates lined up exactly.

But for a general look, and this will be very, very close - here's a chart that includes divs. It shows that Wellesley is UP, bonds are DOWN, and a pure equity investment is WAY UP since March 01, 2013 (as close as I could get to March 05).

The lesson here is that equities did very well during this time. So what is your point?

PerfCharts - StockCharts.com - Free Charts

Based on this, I could only assume he's done this to deliberately prove that equities are a bad investment

I didn't.

Well, it does seem questionable. As far as I can tell, Wellesley is UP, but you claim it is down. And why didn't you post to celebrate when Wellesley was up even higher (May 21)? It might appear to someone that you waited until you thought you could complain about the performance.

And have you priced your other products on the open market? You might see a paper loss in those, esp after transaction and bid/ask costs. Does that worry you? Should you sell?

-ERD50

 

[ER Eddie]

I don't think that will split out the equity portion of Wellesley which seems to be what he is asking for[....]

Ah, you're right. I didn't track his question carefully enough.

 

[obgyn65]

In my opening post, I gave the figures I read directly from the Vanguard chart. I understand these funds fluctuate on a daily basis, although I do not check every day. My 401k includes money market, Retirement Savings Trust, Intermediate term bond index institutional shares, Wellesley income Fund Admiral Shares, and Target Retirement 2030 Trust I.

When entering "Plan summary", then "Personal Performance", and then "Custom range" from 4/13 to 8/13, my investment return is down by $2,700. The Wellesley today is down about 0.43% for the last 3 months, from the same website. When I click on "Month by Month" analysis since April, the loss in my 401k plan is $3,700 since April only. I do not feel comfortable giving more precise numbers in public here.

I do not plan to sell, but I am bit disappointed because it was the first time I got out of my comfort zone and bought bonds from Vanguard. No big deal, but just wanted to share my own successes and failures on the path to becoming more of a risk taker.

I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?

 

[obgyn65]

There are things I am good at, and others (such risk taking in personal finance) where I feel hopeless compared to you, Meadbh. I am happy to report also that the clinical settings where I work or volunteer don't manage emergency deliveries, ectopic pregnancies etc. : good ! However, I am finding out that it is much easier for me to do 10 paps in a row than checking the NAV of one single bond fund only.

Obgyn, please don't take offence, but you are such a nervous Nellie about minor fluctuations in your investments that I have a hard time imagining you managing a complex delivery! Obstetric emergencies are much more scary IMHO.

 

[ERD50]

I'm still confused on the Wellesley investment. Ob, was what you paid lower or higher than the current NAV of $59.78 (assuming Admiral shares)?

I don't understand why the OP won't simply answer this question.

What was the date and NAV paid for Wellesley? It's not complicated.


-ERD50

 

[FIRE'd@51]

Isn't Wellesly passively managed too since I do not need to tell them where to invest ?

No. Wellesley is actively managed since the fund managers subjectively pick the stocks and bonds in the portfolio. Passively managed means that the stocks and/or bonds are picked to mirror an index, e.g the S&P 500. In neither case is any input about the fund's investments required from you.

Just to put your mind at ease a bit - didn't you tell us in another thread that your statements showed varying prices for your broker-purchased CD's, with the price sometimes above or below your purchase price, depending upon the movement in market interest rates? These are the prices you would receive if you sold before maturity, so you have unrealized gains and losses in those instruments, as well.

 

[redduck]

I don't understand why the OP won't simply answer this question.

What was the date and NAV paid for Wellesley? It's not complicated.


-ERD50

Can I play this game?

I bought pssst Wellesley (investor shares) on 08/09/13. The share price was $25.08.

OK, OP, you want to take a turn?

 

[Meadbh]

I don't understand why the OP won't simply answer this question.

What was the date and NAV paid for Wellesley? It's not complicated.


-ERD50

In obgyn's mind, this may be private information. In fact, the NAV is publicly available information and does not threaten his privacy. Or perhaps he is unaware how to find this information.

 

[obgyn65]

Not sure where to look and get that share price on Vanguard site. I will see tomorrow if I can find this information from past statements or online but again, I am not feeling comfortable sharing more information than I have already shared. All the data I have shared so far is accurate to the best of my knowledge. Not sure whether Wellesley (investor shares) which you bought and Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund Admiral Shares (VWIAX, which I bought) are similar.

Can I play this game?

I bought pssst Wellesley (investor shares) on 08/09/13. The share price was $25.08.

OK, OP, you want to take a turn?

 

[Accidental Retiree]

We put $25,000 into Wellesley investor shares a few months ago, and I can't remember what we paid, but I think maybe $24.79. I couldn't tell you where it is today.

We are getting ready to roll another $25k into Wellesley to get to Admiral level -- if that dang credit union ever gets off its a&& and moves the money. It's been a month now...

 

[tulak]

I didn't.

After reading your responses, I believe you didn't do this to prove equities are bad. Since you've been here a while, I've assumed that you have a basic understanding of asset allocation. As a free piece of advice, regardless of how you choose to invest, you could benefit from reading a basic book on asset allocation. There's ton of information here on books, not to mention the bogleheads site.

And yes, I understand you're busy, but if your going down this path, it might be well worth the time. Plus, I seem to recall that you've spent a lot of time modeling SPIA's and such. I can't imagine that this is any more difficult.

Also, regarding posting performance numbers, in the way you did in the first post, it's useless. I could just as easily pick two dates for Wellesley and say it went up/down by this much. Just go to finance.google.com and enter Wellesley in the search box. On the left-hand side you can get historical prices. (excluding dividends of course).

Of course, as somebody else also mentioned, you could login to your account on Vanguard and check the performance of your investments. Vanguard makes this easy.

I'll also add that many here are also willing to do the calculation for you. This forum is great about that, mostly because it's easy to do and primarily because it's always easier to deal with hard numbers when trying to make point. You don't have to give out any dollar amounts if that's what bothers you, just the day you bought. From that, it's easy to determine the percentage you are up/down. You can then take this and multiply times how much you invested (assuming you only bought once) and you'll know the dollar amount.

 

[RunningBum]

Also, regarding posting performance numbers, in the way you did in the first post, it's useless. I could just as easily pick two dates for Wellesley and say it went up/down by this much. Just go to finance.google.com and enter Wellesley in the search box. On the left-hand side you can get historical prices. (excluding dividends of course).

yahoo's historical prices will adjust for dividends and splits:
VWIAX Historical Prices | Vanguard Wellesley Income Fund Stock - Yahoo! Finance

Of course, as somebody else also mentioned, you could login to your account on Vanguard and check the performance of your investments. Vanguard makes this easy.

I'll also add that many here are also willing to do the calculation for you. This forum is great about that, mostly because it's easy to do and primarily because it's always easier to deal with hard numbers when trying to make point. You don't have to give out any dollar amounts if that's what bothers you, just the day you bought. From that, it's easy to determine the percentage you are up/down. You can then take this and multiply times how much you invested (assuming you only bought once) and you'll know the dollar amount.

Yep, it's almost like he's going out of his way to avoid getting an accurate number.

 

[obgyn65]

I accept the challenge. It's been a good idea since it has allowed me to learn the use of the Windows "snagit" application for screen capture.

Please have a look at the graph below. This is the graph I got from Vanguard today. The value of Wellesley was about $10,834 recently (see opening post). As of today, when I hover my mouse over July, it shows $10,787. When looking at my past transactions from the Vanguard website, the week I made the transaction in mid February reads "Fund to Fund In" (it was a transfer from my money market to Wellesley, Bond Index Fund Institutional, Target Retirement 2030 Trust I). The Fund Name is Wellesley Income Fund Adm . There is no mention of any "investors shares".

The price during mid February (2/15, from the statement) was $59.58. I created a thread a few days later about that purchase: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/just-bought-50-000-worth-of-wellesley-65457.html I was so happy about it, and wanted to share with all my friends here my first step towards being less conservative.

Since then, my 401k plan (including Wellesley, Vanguard Intermediate-Term Bond Index Fund Institutional, Target Retirement 2030 Trust I, and money market) has lost more than $4,000 as of today (from the Vanguard website, when choosing "Personal Performance"). The values in money markets accounts have not changed. I have no idea how this can happen. Maybe I got something wrong, not sure.

Yep, it's almost like he's going out of his way to avoid getting an accurate number.

 

[RunningBum]

There were 3 or 4 suggestions on how to get an accurate number, and none of them were to post the generic graph. In fact I'm pretty sure I said NOT to use that. And here it is. I give up.

 

[obgyn65]

Thank you. Yes it took me a while, but I still did it. Had some time over lunch.

Or perhaps he is unaware how to find this information.

 

[obgyn65]

I just inserted the only price (with 2 decimals this time) I could find online, and the exact date from Vanguard.

There were 3 or 4 suggestions on how to get an accurate number, and none of them were to post the generic graph. In fact I'm pretty sure I said NOT to use that. And here it is. I give up.

 

[pb4uski]

So on Wellesley you have done well You bought it in mid February at 59.58. You received ~0.92 in dividends since then and could sell it today for 59.71. more than you invested.

So your value today plus the dividends you have received total 60.63 vs the 59.58 that you invested. And it will likely only get better from here.

 

[karluk]

I am simply baffled as to why it has become such an apparently impossible task to determine which of your funds are showing a profit, which are showing a loss, and by how much. I can assure that never once in my dealings with Vanguard have they ever tried to play guessing games with me by hiding the exact value of my investments. According to the link of Yahoo historical prices provided by RunningBum, a $50,000 investment in VWIAX made on February 15 would currently be worth $50,886.31 as of today's close, assuming dividends were reinvested.

On the other hand, $50,000 invested in VBIMX on February 15 would be worth only $48146.55 today.

I'm not sure what "Target Retirement 2030 Trust I" is, but by way of comparison Vanguard's Target Retirement 2030 fund (VTHRX) would have grown from $50,000 to $52743.65 between February 15 and today.

So there is no clear explanation of why your 401k is supposedly down more than $4,000 since February 15. You would have literally had to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the bond fund to experience losses of this magnitude, since you needed to lose enough in the bond fund to more than offset strong performances by both Wellesley and the target retirement fund. Either that, or you made ill-timed investments on some other date(s) at much higher prices than were available on Februrary 15.

 

[Major Tom]

I just wish I was able to start a thread and get as many replies as Obgyn does

 

[HFWR]

How much did you invest, and what is it worth now?

Done!