I started investing in mutual funds in 1987 and quickly acquired a large stable of pick of the month mutual funds that eventually worked its way up to about 35 funds which periodically rotated with more pick of the month choices ( from the various monthly financial publications), . Even with this large number (I guess actually a closet index fund with God knows what bias but certainly much higher costs than index funds) I actually managed to ER on my investments only in January of 2003 which I tought at the time was really not bad after 16 years of investing and directing about 15 % of my income to the mutual funds.
Imagine my surprise when I actually ran what if numbers on what it would have been if I'd only bought 50% Welleslley/50 Wellington and nothing else:
1/1/03 to today (per quicken) my basket 9.4% Wellsi/Welltn 8.1%
1/1/00 to today - my basket 2.3 % Wellsi/Welltn 7.2%
1/1/88 to today my basket 8.2 % Wellsi/Welltn 10%
Jeez! I could have gone fishin instead of putting all that time into reading all those books and financial publications and slicing and dicing!
Imagine my surprise when I actually ran what if numbers on what it would have been if I'd only bought 50% Welleslley/50 Wellington and nothing else:
1/1/03 to today (per quicken) my basket 9.4% Wellsi/Welltn 8.1%
1/1/00 to today - my basket 2.3 % Wellsi/Welltn 7.2%
1/1/88 to today my basket 8.2 % Wellsi/Welltn 10%
Jeez! I could have gone fishin instead of putting all that time into reading all those books and financial publications and slicing and dicing!