2014 Investment Returns

[racy]

7.2% on moderately conservative portfolio of 44% equities, 56% bonds (predominately short term). With inflation running under 2%, I'm satisfied and sleep well.

[rodi]

I'm too lazy to do my total portfolio... and my old 401k had contributions (since I retired in June)... and my investment account had both contributions/withdrawals during the year... The math gets too complicated.

But I have one rolled 401k/IRA that has a nice chunk of money in it. I got 8.2%. I have another, much smaller, but a lot of international as a percentage - only 6.8%

I also have some CD's that got 2.25%.

Again - too lazy to combine those and get the overall percentage of all my accounts that didn't have contributions or withdrawals.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corporateburnout If the S&P 500 returned 12% how could a 60/40 portfolio return 18%? Am I missing something?

It depends on what's in the 60%, doesn't it?
I think many of us automatically assume that we're all invested solely in index funds.
I'm gradually moving in that direction, but I won't be there for a while yet.

Meanwhile, there are some good performers, and occasionally even a blind squirrel will find an acorn.

Just as a sample data point, one of my larger holdings this year was FBIOX, which did quite well.

[jjquantz]

Portfolio balance was up about 20% with DW's continuing contributions and my last contributions and return was in the neighborhood of 12%.

Portfolio consisted of approximately:

60% US equity funds (up about 11%)
10% REIT index fund (big winner for the year - up almost 45%)
10% Bond fund (surprise winner - up almost 6%)
20% International funds (drag on the year - down about 4%)

DW will continue to work for several more years so still very aggressively in stocks.

[mickeyd]

My 50/50 AA pulled down 9.28% in 2014. I was expecting closer to 10% but I re-jiggered in July when my AA changed from 60/40 to 50/50. My numbers do not reflect about $2000 in dividends that my TSM fund sent to my checking account last year.

Not as good as 2013, but acceptable.

[Cobra9777]

Overall 9.3% on balanced portfolio: 45% stock, 35% bonds, 15% real estate, and 5% cash. Stock allocation was 12.7%, a little below the S&P 500 due to lagging international returns. Bond allocation, which is dominated by AGG and LQD, did surprisingly well at 6.4%. Real estate was 7.8% and cash was 0.7%. Definitely a good year.

[clifp]

I was quite happy and somewhat surprise how well this year turned out.
Schwab put my time weight returns at 14.6% Comfortable exceeding the moderately aggressive benchmark 80/15/5 (20% international) of 6.8, with a risk level a fraction higher than the benchmark.

My top two portfolio holdings Berkshire and Intel were up 26% and 43% respectively which more than made up for my not successful attempt at market timing, and some other bonehead moves in the 4th quarter.

I've been investing (along with Nords) in mostly Hawaii startup (Angel investing) since 2006. So far the track record has been pretty poor (some good tax credits early on), a couple of outright bankruptcies, and bunch while still surviving still face tough challenges. This year one of the companies hit a home run. They paid out a cash dividend (actually in Jan so it's not part of my calculations) that greatly exceeded all of my investments in the company. The stock price has increase 5 fold. Fortunately, it was the company I was most optimistic about and invested every chance I got and so single handily turned my Angel investing from an expensive hobby to a profitable one.
This led to an increase in my liquid net worth by 17.9% despite spending like a 1/2 drunk sailor most of the year.

Finally I had real estate appreciation according to Zillow in the low double digits leading to an overall increase in my net worth of 15.0%

At the risk of being obnoxious I added a million to my net worth in less than 15 months. (But if I can't boast on the ER board...where can I )

[Live Free]

7.6 with a 70/30 AA.

[heeyy_joe]

60% Stocks, 20% Bonds, 20% cash, 12% return, REPEAT!

[Trix55]

6.75%. I 'fired' my financial adviser in July and moved my TIra and Roth Ira to Vanguard. I turned 59 recently and just did the first partial rollover of my 401k from the employers custodian to my Vanguard Roth Ira. I'm looking forward to a better 2015!

[aida2003]

Well, I think I'm in a 'dumb' field because I don't know how to calculate the return on our total portfolio and I don't trust to link our accounts to some website to aggregate it.
I just saw that my DH's 401k of 75/25 had 7.2% return. Mostly Vanguard idx funds. My 401k had a bit higher return, but it also has a higher expense ratio. It's mostly TRRDX and a bit of New Horizons trust fund.

But we also have Roth IRA's, CD's, I-bonds, and a good chunk of taxable investments in blue-chip div. stocks, VTSAX, VFWAX, and DODGX.

Our net worth increased, but no clue by how much in percentage terms.

[wingfooted]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScaredtoQuit How does one go about achieving a 29.6% rate of return?

I'm running this after tax brokerage account like a mini hedge fund. Long, short, individual stocks, options, margin, covered, naked, write, spreads - yes to all.

When it works, and you guess right, it can be very profitable to invest in this manner.

The downside is the day to day volatility is very stressful and there a lot of emotional highs and lows. Due to geographic location, the markets in NY open at around 3 PM for me and close at 10 PM. So it is easy to keep watch on how things are going and adjust accordingly on virtually a tick for tick basis.

[longinvest]

Using the BogleheadsWiki:Calculating personal returns spreadsheet:

PORTFOLIO RETURN (time-weighted returns, comparable returns)

Portfolio return as of 12-31-2014
YTD 8.92%

[Nords]

I haven't tracked our returns this year, but it's mostly up. Nothing needed rebalancing, but next week I'm going to buy some more international value ETF shares (iShares MSCI EAFE Value, EFV) with IRA dividend cash.

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp My top two portfolio holdings Berkshire and Intel were up 26% and 43% respectively which more than made up for my not successful attempt at market timing, and some other bonehead moves in the 4th quarter.

Berkshire has been very good to shareholders this year!

I'm beginning to think that I should stop rebalancing that stock... stop giving it away or selling it... and just hold on to the shares for the rest of my life.

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp I've been investing (along with Nords) in mostly Hawaii startup (Angel investing) since 2006. So far the track record has been pretty poor (some good tax credits early on), a couple of outright bankruptcies, and bunch while still surviving still face tough challenges. This year one of the companies hit a home run. They paid out a cash dividend (actually in Jan so it's not part of my calculations) that greatly exceeded all of my investments in the company. The stock price has increase 5 fold. Fortunately, it was the company I was most optimistic about and invested every chance I got and so single handily turned my Angel investing from an expensive hobby to a profitable one. This led to an increase in my liquid net worth by 17.9% despite spending like a 1/2 drunk sailor most of the year.

That was a huge win-- congratulations!
If I went back in time to the day when I could buy that investment, I'd still shake my head at the political risk and walk away. I'm glad that turned around your portfolio!

Four of my nine have ceased operations, so that greatly simplifies the tracking of my remaining angel investments. Oboy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by clifp At the risk of being obnoxious I added a million to my net worth in less than 15 months. (But if I can't boast on the ER board...where can I )

Hawaii real estate values are (once again) going nuts. It really seems unfair to raise the rent on our tenants for the second year in a row, but the state has not hesitated to do the same with property assessments...

[Chuckanut]

Up 6.6% for the year overall. Not bad considering that a good percentage of my assets is in lower yielding CD's and such.

As a comparison I noticed that PSSSST......Wellesley was up about 8%.

[fidler4]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rodi I'm too lazy to do my total portfolio... and my old 401k had contributions (since I retired in June)... and my investment account had both contributions/withdrawals during the year... The math gets too complicated. But I have one rolled 401k/IRA that has a nice chunk of money in it. I got 8.2%. I have another, much smaller, but a lot of international as a percentage - only 6.8% I also have some CD's that got 2.25%. Again - too lazy to combine those and get the overall percentage of all my accounts that didn't have contributions or withdrawals.

+ 1.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

[RobLJ]

I may take the low at 5.5% (60-25-15): international and emerging market--40% of equity allocation--took a toll this year.

[Andre1969]

I ended up the year up about 5.6%. Would have done better, but I had some money invested in a gold fund, which got whacked. And a couple of overseas funds that got hit, and some energy funds that got slammed toward the end of the year.


It's far cry from the 23.1% I got in 2013 and 15.9% in 2012, but I'll still take it! It could be worse...there were a few times during the year I had actually gone negative!

[KingB]

7.62% on a 49/51 AA.

[Greg V]

3.5% on a 50/50 AA...strong international tilt plus some emerging markets was a bit of a drag. However, the race is a long one...congrats to the big winners this past year.