2014 Investment Returns

[Ronstar]

8.16% in taxable, 7.85% in 401k, 8.50% in IRA. All 3 around 60/40

 

[big-papa]

Around 7.4% 64% stock, remainder in govt bonds, tips, and a smidgen of foreign bonds. Stocks are a mix of mid-cap value and small cap value. As noted elsewhere, last year was the year of the large cap.....


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[MRG]

8.9% net across all our accounts most of which are wrap accounts holding mostly managed funds, two ETFs, and 50 individual stocks.

Any front end loads to add?

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[Gatordoc50]

Around 8% return in taxable and retirement accounts. Around 20% appreciation of real estate. So altogether about 14%.

 

[Rustward]

Any front end loads to add?

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Zero front end loads - Most of these are institutional share classes. Most have minimum purchases that are seven digits or more but the brokerages are allowed to aggregate their clients' holdings to meet those very large minimums. One fund has a 12B-1 fee which is reimbursed to my account every quarter. That's it.

I was using one A share at one point because that particular fund had no institutional share class. In that case after each buy the brokerage credited my account the amount of the front end load.

Just like there are bad funds, there are some bad advisors (ours is a CFP). But they are not all bad. Our portfolio gets results in the same range as the indexers year after year. I am not saying that active management is better than indexing. But I am not saying it is worse as long as it is done correctly.

Just for fun and comparison using real money and trying to remain objective, several years ago I did a 401K rollover to an IRA that is all at [pick your favorite online brokerage]. It is setup like a basic Bernstein portfolio as described in The Four Pillars of Investing (yes, I read the books) and that account and the actively managed ones perform about the same. Of course there are some fees associated with active management that are not present in the "indexed" account, but it is not about what you may have to pay in fees, but about overall returns after you have paid any fees. No?

This is a kind of take-your-pick thing.

If anybody wants to start an active management vs indexing war, please do it in a new thread. I might even participate.

 

[Livin Large in MT]

Reading these makes me feel so much better. I am used to underperforming the S&P because I also underperform when things go south.
But my international stocks killed me this year...7.58% total leaving my cash holdings out. With cash, my performance drops to 6% which sort of sucks. I have spent the weekend reviewing my holdings and concluded that all my dividend payers were awesome but the international mutual funds definitely dragged me down... and I just don't feel that I have enough knowledge about international companies to invest in individual stocks. Hoping I don't regret holding these funds for next year...

 

[redduck]

I don't hold high yield, emerging markets, or energy as asset classes, and 2014 was a good year to avoid them. Of course some of my funds have positions in them.

Nobody knows that better NOW than redduck--especially re: energy as an asset class.

 

[martyb]

7.46% average between my TSP, our Roth & wife's rollover IRA. Her employer's 401k plan administrator is painfully slow at supplying quarterly statements, so we don't know how she did there yet. Her 401k constitutes around 12.5% of our total invested portfolio. Currrently, we live on my pension & her working income, not taking withdrawals yet. Probably will be a little more aggressive in 2015.

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[target2019]

Something like 6.5% on a 58/42 portfolio. Int'l is 19% of total portfolio, so that has quelled the US returns. When I get sad, I just look at my Roth, which is largely vanguard REIT fund...

 

[KMyer]

9.5% overall return in 2014 on my taxable accounts and 401(k) account. The 2014 return is less than 1/3 of the return I got in 2013. I got killed in 2014 on some energy sector investments in my taxable accounts plus I now have 45% of my 401k balance in the Fidelity Freedom 2025 Fund to start diversifying my holdings. All other investments are still in equities. Thinking of investing some more funds in the energy sector.

 

[jfn111]

8.13 in my 401K and a little over 9% in my wifes roll over IRA.
My play money account represents about 2 1/2%, of our portfolio, and my return was 1%.
I'm a great stock picker

 

[6miths]

Over on Bogleheads about 10% of the respondents were 'don't know, don't care'. I checked that but admit that it would be interesting to know but like others here, am too lazy to do the math over all of the various account. Seems to me that the last 5 years (like baseball) have been very, very good to me.

 

[Sunset]

Our overall portfolio is up a little bit over 11.1 %.

I'm pleased with it.
Now I'm adding to a small VXUS position via my ira/roth dividends, as I'm a little low on the international stock side.

 

[pb4uski]

Our retirement portfolio's total return for 2014 was 5.86%. Our benchmark is a 42/18/27/7/6 mix of Total Stock/Total International Stock/Total Bond/Total International Bond/Cash that had a return of 6.77%.

The big reason for under performance was in the domestic fixed income category where I have intentionally pared back interest rate risk with CDs and target maturity bond funds that did not do well compared to Total Bond, which had a good year. International fixed income and domestic equities were slightly lower than their respective benchmarks but international equities loss for they year was only 2/3rds of the benchmark loss for the year due to overweight on emerging markets.

Given my retirement plan assumption is a return of 5.5%, I'm reasonably content but wish I had a better answer to mitigating fixed income interest rate risk than CDs and target maturity bond funds.

 

[Midpack]

The big reason for under performance was in the domestic fixed income category where I have intentionally pared back interest rate risk with CDs and target maturity bond funds that did not do well compared to Total Bond, which had a good year. International fixed income and domestic equities were slightly lower than their respective benchmarks but international equities loss for they year was only 2/3rds of the benchmark loss for the year due to overweight on emerging markets.

Given my retirement plan assumption is a return of 5.5%, I'm reasonably content but wish I had a better answer to mitigating fixed income interest rate risk.

+1. Almost a year ago, after VFSUX had outperformed TBM in 2013, to shorten duration I exchanged about 2/3rds of our TBM into VFSUX (Short Term Investment Grade), and so far that's not been wise. Real rookie mistake, chasing returns (though duration was my MO), time will tell...

 

[Fermion]

Overall our return was 8.9%

The kick in the nuts was my trading account, which I think I posted about some time during the summer. I was up over 60% in that during the summer and was all cash. I then decided oil drillers and mining stocks were pretty cheap.

Ended up 2014 being up about 5% in my trading account. LOL (where is the icon of someone butting head against wall?)

 

[Midpack]

Ended up 2014 being up about 5% in my trading account. LOL (where is the icon of someone butting head against wall?)

You mean this

 

[MRG]

Zero front end loads - Most of these are institutional share classes. Most have minimum purchases that are seven digits or more but the brokerages are allowed to aggregate their clients' holdings to meet those very large minimums. One fund has a 12B-1 fee which is reimbursed to my account every quarter. That's it.

I was using one A share at one point because that particular fund had no institutional share class. In that case after each buy the brokerage credited my account the amount of the front end load.

Just like there are bad funds, there are some bad advisors (ours is a CFP). But they are not all bad. Our portfolio gets results in the same range as the indexers year after year. I am not saying that active management is better than indexing. But I am not saying it is worse as long as it is done correctly.

Just for fun and comparison using real money and trying to remain objective, several years ago I did a 401K rollover to an IRA that is all at [pick your favorite online brokerage]. It is setup like a basic Bernstein portfolio as described in The Four Pillars of Investing (yes, I read the books) and that account and the actively managed ones perform about the same. Of course there are some fees associated with active management that are not present in the "indexed" account, but it is not about what you may have to pay in fees, but about overall returns after you have paid any fees. No?

This is a kind of take-your-pick thing.

If anybody wants to start an active management vs indexing war, please do it in a new thread. I might even participate.

Thanks for spending the time for a great reply. Sounds like a good plan. I remember hearing about offerings that sounded similar. Put in enough and get into instutuonal shares. Not sure who(financial organization) was going to offer it, I was involved in some of the IT infrastructure consulting .

You won't get an argument from me. Active/passive/equities/ETFs I do all. As long as it works for you, who am I to say. Actually returns like yours are attractive.

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[Taxman59]

401k - 4.2% (80% of the portfolio)
Roth IRA - 21% (10% )
DW IRA 10% (10%)

Overall not great but not too bad


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