2018 YTD investment performance thread

[DennisT]

9.0% YTD on my portfolio of short equity and futures options. The short futures options are doing somewhat better. Only 20% in this portfolio, the rest in real estate and index funds.

 

[Dtail]

9.0% YTD on my portfolio of short equity and futures options. The short futures options are doing somewhat better. Only 20% in this portfolio, the rest in real estate and index funds.

Nice first post.
Welcome to this wonderful site.

 

[Totoro]

What goes down, sometimes goes up:

• Index tracker world: +3.7%
• Index tracker non-US: +3.2%
• Individual stock account, incl. cash drag: +11.6%

All accounts in EUR, total return since Jan. 1st 2018

 

[tmm99]

I don't know what you guys have, but you all are doing much better than I am. I am about 0% for the US side. As for my Canadian stocks, they are still way down.

 

[68bucks]

I'm at 2.56% at the end of May with an AA of 60/38/2. All the gain has come since the end of Q1. I was down about 1% at that time.

 

[brokrken]

As of close on 6/1 +4.45%

 

[Andre1969]

I had a rate of return of around 3.6% as of the 5/31 close, but what a difference two days can make! Up 4.8% as of the 6/4 close.

Also, one nice little milestone...as of yesterday's close, my investments have "made" about as much as my salary for the year. Hopefully that doesn't qualify as a "wheeee" statement!

 

[audreyh1]

No, that is in $USD.

Wow!

 

[audreyh1]

We seem to be pretty much flat YTD. I’ll do the official calcs at the end of the quarter.

 

[KCGeezer]

I’m in the flat to slightly up contingent at +1.2.

 

[callmebrick]

401k - 3.84%


Vanguard Roth - 2.58%


Taxable ETFs - 1.31%

 

[RobbieB]

Up 3.4%

 

[NYEXPAT]

+11.99% on a 95/0/5 portfolio.

+15.2 on 6/7, what a difference a week makes!

 

[Turboslacker]

+15.2 on 6/7, what a difference a week makes!

Nice!

 

[pb4uski]

+15.2 on 6/7, what a difference a week makes!

Be careful what you say.... that increase could easily unwind in a week too.

 

[NYEXPAT]

Be careful what you say.... that increase could easily unwind in a week too.

I hear you! Started the month 95/0/5, as of Friday was 60/0/40 and am looking to get it down to 30/0/60 fairly soon.

 

[pb4uski]

.... Higher investment grade bond/notes A- to AAA are still very overpriced relative to CDs and treasuries. Funds holding these low coupon high investment grade notes will continue to under-perform. Who in their right mind would buy Apple's 1.55% 5 year note (rated AA+) other than a bond fund. Lower investment grade short and medium term notes/bonds are starting to become more attractive but still not in the buy range.

So given that current investment grade corporate spreads are so poor, should I sell my target maturity corporate bond funds and reinvest in CDs?

What does it yield and what is it holding? Which fund?

Mostly BSCK (POWERSHARES BULLETSHARES 2020 CORP BOND ETF... 2.99%), BSCM (POWERSHARES BULLETSHARES 2022 CORP BOND ETF... 3.47%) and IBDC (ISHARES IBONDS MARCH 2020 TERM CORP ETF.... 2.79%)

These will distribute liquidation distributions in December of the years' indicated, but I would sell about a year earlier... hold BSCK and IBDC until December 2019 and BSCM until December 2021.

18 month CDs are ~2.55% and 42 month CDs are ~3.06% so I'm getting a 40-55 bp premium to CDs for A-BBB credit.

I took a look at your funds.

BSCK Distribution yield is 2.08% and 1 year return is +0.6%
BSCM Distribution yield is 2.55%, 1 year return +1.0%
IBDC Distribution yield is 2.10%, 1 year return is +.94%

I would not go by SEC yield since it assumes that the bonds would be held to maturity and all income is re-invested. An ETF cannot guarantee that it will hold a bond to maturity due to fund outflows. It's also difficult to compute the liquidation NAV for the same reason.

An 18 month CD yield is about 2.55%, BBB rated corporate is about 3.33%, B
A 3 year CD is now 3.0%, BBB rated corporate is 4.33%,
A 4 year CD is now 3.1% BBB rated corporate is about 4.7%,

You need to look at your entry price for these funds to make an informed decision on what to do.

Well I did ultimately decide to sell, and the returns have been in the mid 2% range.

As background, in 2013/2014 I shifted my bond allocation to some Guggenheim Bulletshares and Powershares I-Bond ETFs to reduce my interest rate risk. At the time that I bought them, the investment grade versions had yields to worst that were about the same as comparable CDs. I unwound that tactic on June 1.

My overall weighted average annual return was 2.63% (vs 1.73% for BND).... for just the investment grade versions the overall weighted average annual return was 2.20% (vs 1.65% for BND). I'm quite happy with 2.63% given BND returns.

Proceeds are now parked in VMMXX at about 2% until I figure out what I want to do going forward for fixed income.... leaning towrds CDs but given likely interest rate increases and how flat the yield curve is I'm just unsure how long I want to go.

 

[Freedom56]

Well I did ultimately decide to sell, and the returns have been in the mid 2% range.

As background, in 2013/2014 I shifted my bond allocation to some Guggenheim Bulletshares and Powershares I-Bond ETFs to reduce my interest rate risk. At the time that I bought them, the investment grade versions had yields to worst that were about the same as comparable CDs. I unwound that tactic on June 1.

My overall weighted average annual return was 2.63% (vs 1.73% for BND).... for just the investment grade versions the overall weighted average annual return was 2.20% (vs 1.65% for BND). I'm quite happy with 2.63% given BND returns.

Proceeds are now parked in VMMXX at about 2% until I figure out what I want to do going forward for fixed income.... leaning towrds CDs but given likely interest rate increases and how flat the yield curve is I'm just unsure how long I want to go.

If you earned only 2.63% from 2013/14 and are happy with those returns, your standards are too low. I would pay off that mortgage right now. The performance of your funds are nothing short of pathetic. 2013/14 was a golden year for picking up fixed income investments. There were bargains all around for investment grade preferred stocks, bonds, and even CEFs. I loaded up with investment grade preferred stocks of banks and insurance companies (JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Capital One) and others, more bonds, and CEFs that invest in that asset class that were yielding almost 9.6% at that time (PDT, FFC, JPS, HPS, HPI, FPF), and enjoyed an average of 12-14% returns from 2013/14. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. I took a large gain in late 2017 selling out of my preferred stock holdings as they were selling significantly above par and my acquisition price. I sold my CEFs in 2015 and took those healthy gains and loaded up on more individual preferred stocks. This year will not be anything like the past 4 years but I'm still on track for a healthy 7-8% gain.

If you want to stick with funds, I would start here to find them:

www.cefconnect.com

Passive bond funds do not perform well in volatile markets.

 

[pb4uski]

..... CEFs that invest in that asset class that were yielding almost 9.6% at that time (PDT, FFC, JPS, HPS, HPI, FPF), and enjoyed an average of 12-14% returns from 2013/14. ...

To be clear, the 2.63% is just domestic bonds...not the total.. the total is ~9% annually.

You claim 12-14% returns for your CEFs from 2013/2014.... wishful thinking.... equal parts of PDT, FFC, JPS, HPS, HPI returned 8.69% since Jan 2013 (to May 2018... I excluded FPF because it did not exist as of the beginning of 2013).

The other issue is that these tickers took a beating in 08/09... worse than Total Stock and they also seem to be pretty volatile. The standard deviation of that group is actually higher than Total Stock for that 5+ year period.... but the total returns have been pretty good.... but they behave more like high dividend equities than bonds.


https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com...bol9=VFIDX&allocation9_2=40&allocation9_3=100

 

[Golden sunsets]

Pb; I find Freedom a bit condesending in his comentary, as I conclude you do, but I’m curious as to why you sold your Bullett shares. We own bullet shares for some of our bond ladder rungs and outright bonds for other rungs. It seems to me that selling either one of these will result in a loss if rates have just risen. As a buy and hold investor why would you reverse course, or am I missing something? PS - we don’t reinvest our proceeds from bullet shares.

 

[pb4uski]

Yeah, he acts like a rich, curmudgeonly dweeb, but I just consider the source and ignore his insults... no skin off my back... he'll eventually figure out that his insults just impair his credibility.

I sold mainly because I wasn't keen on recent performance and was somewhat convinced that short/mid term corporate bonds were well priced and money market funds are now giving pretty attractive yields (2% for VMMXX). I not sure if you are missing anything... it was just a gut thing. I had a small gain... ~ 0.6%. I typically sell a year before maturity anyway and most of mine were 2020 so I sold about 18 months earlier thaI normally would have.

I'm currently undecided on how to redeploy... may just go with a CD ladder but I might wait until the PenFed 3% CDs mature in December.... I'm guessing that rates will be going up but the yield curve is so flat right now I'm having trouble making a decision. I don't mind being on the sidelines parked in at 2% MM at this point. This whole fixed income market is a bit odd to me... I can't ever recall CDs being so competitive with investment grade corporates.

Despite his dweebiness, I may do some research on the tickers Freedom56 mentioned for my high-yield bond allocation.... but to me they are way too volatile to be balllast for my portfolio.

 

[Freedom56]

To be clear, the 2.63% is just domestic bonds...not the total.. the total is ~9% annually.

You claim 12-14% returns for your CEFs from 2013/2014.... wishful thinking.... equal parts of PDT, FFC, JPS, HPS, HPI returned 8.69% since Jan 2013 (to May 2018... I excluded FPF because it did not exist as of the beginning of 2013).

The other issue is that these tickers took a beating in 08/09... worse than Total Stock and they also seem to be pretty volatile. The standard deviation of that group is actually higher than Total Stock for that 5+ year period.... but the total returns have been pretty good.... but they behave more like high dividend equities than bonds.


https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com...bol9=VFIDX&allocation9_2=40&allocation9_3=100

Just back from the movies (a lot of people got munched up) and what do I find.

Towards the end of 2013 was my entry point for these preferred CEFs. Barrons even had a buy signal on these preferred CEFs and Muni bond CEFs. It was also tax loss selling season, so it was a buyer’s market for most fixed income securities.

The majority of my CEF holdings were in PDT, which along with FPF and FFC are some of the best managed preferred CEFs out there. I had some FPF, FFC, HPS, HPI, and JPS. Why don't you look at the returns from 2014 when you bought your funds? I guess you didn't want others to see the 12.6% returns since 2014. The returns are phenomenal for fixed income. I didn't own them 2008/2009. They weren't even on my radar screen. In the two year period I held them I received about 9.6% distribution annually plus about a 22% capital gain. The returns from my bonds and individual preferred stocks were less resulting in the lower 12-14% number.

Even your calculation of 8.94% is a far cry from the paltry 2.63% return. The years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 were golden years for fixed income investors (bonds, preferred stocks). This is why I called your 2.63% return pathetic.

 

[Freedom56]

I'm currently undecided on how to redeploy... may just go with a CD ladder but I might wait until the PenFed 3% CDs mature in December.... I'm guessing that rates will be going up but the yield curve is so flat right now I'm having trouble making a decision. I don't mind being on the sidelines parked in at 2% MM at this point. This whole fixed income market is a bit odd to me... I can't ever recall CDs being so competitive with investment grade corporates.

Despite his dweebiness, I may do some research on the tickers Freedom56 mentioned for my high-yield bond allocation.... but to me they are way too volatile to be balllast for my portfolio.

Just so you don't end up cow tipping or get blisters on your fingers from typing all your posts, I will ignore your comments and help you out. I wouldn't buy those tickers that I quoted to you now. I got out for a reason. They borrow short term and invest in medium to long term. With a flat to inverting yield curve leverage doesn't help, they are overpriced plus their distributions are declining not increasing like they were in 2014 and on. You might want to go to the preferred investing thread for some ideas in the mean time.

 

[pb4uski]

..... The years 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 were golden years for fixed income investors (bonds, preferred stocks). This is why I called your 2.63% return pathetic.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Your favorite son, PDT, is 3% bonds.... 59% preferred stock and 36% common stock. FPF is 31% leveraged and mostly fixed to floating or variable rate securities. FFC is 34% leveraged. So for someone who seems dead set against leverage your funds have a lot of leverage. (FWIW, my mortgage is ~5% my portfolio).

OTOH, for 2014 to 2018, the average return of 5 large, well regarded high quality BOND funds was 3.25%.... of the same period BSCK (a bond ETF) was 2.93%... but BSCK had a lower duration and I was looking for less interest rate sensitivity so I'm content with that return. I know.... not only am I pathetic but PIMCO, Dodge & Cox, MetWest et al are pathetic too... but I wasn't trying to beat them... I was trying to be close with less interest rate sensitivity.

You are by far the smartest guy in the room... my hat's off to you.

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com...allocation8_3=30&symbol9=FFC&allocation9_3=30

 

[Freedom56]

You're comparing apples and oranges. Your favorite son, PDT, is 3% bonds.... 59% preferred stock and 36% common stock. FPF is 31% leveraged and mostly fixed to floating or variable rate securities. FFC is 34% leveraged. So for someone who seems dead set against leverage your funds have a lot of leverage. (FWIW, my mortgage is ~5% my portfolio).

OTOH, for 2014 to 2018, the average return of 5 large, well regarded high quality BOND funds was 3.25%.... of the same period BSCK (a bond ETF) was 2.93%... but BSCK had a lower duration and I was looking for less interest rate sensitivity so I'm content with that return. I know.... not only am I pathetic but PIMCO, Dodge & Cox, MetWest et al are pathetic too... but I wasn't trying to beat them... I was trying to be close with less interest rate sensitivity.

You are by far the smartest guy in the room... my hat's off to you.

https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com...allocation8_3=30&symbol9=FFC&allocation9_3=30

I use PGX as my benchmark. It is a non-leveraged ETF and invests in bonds and preferred stocks. It is about as passive as it gets. As long as I can beat it and I don't have a losing year, I'm happy. Since 2014 it did return a respectable 7.8%