Correction Imminent?

[Original Wally]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 Yep, equities look exactly like the Venezuelan beaver cheese futures market right before it crashed. Be afraid, very afraid.

Now that is funny

[NW-Bound]

No dancing here. Call me greedy, but my expectations are high, and I am difficult to please, even to myself. The fact is the porfolio barely exceeds the high I set back in May 2011.

From Jan 2010 up till mid 2011, I beat the pants off the S&P, then lost that gain, and trailed the S&P for the next 12 months. Started to do well again in mid 2012 till now, but only caught up to the old high.

Then, my starting to draw 3.5%WR makes it that much harder to keep up.

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound From Jan 2010 up till mid 2011, I beat the pants off the S&P, then lost that gain, and trailed the S&P for the next 12 months. Started to do well again in mid 2012 till now, but only caught up to the old high.

OMG! Does that mean that one cannot beat the Market?

[NW-Bound]

No, not consistently. I am certainly not that arrogant to set such aspiration. Win some, lose some.

But I am trying to improve my batting average. I think that's what they say in baseball, as I do not know about any sports.

[NW-Bound]

OK, as a picture is worth a thousand words, here's the comparison of my portfolio to the S&P 500 in the two-year period of 2010-2011.

Note that I am never 100% invested in stocks, and have never had much in bonds (around 5% in the last few years). My record shows that at the peak of my portfolio in 4/2011, I was holding 34% cash in low-yielding accounts like I-bonds and money market. The performance shown below included that deadweight cash in the portfolio.



The stocks I picked were kicking ass! They then fizzled out during the summer of 2011 because of the budget debate fiasco, and I was enjoying my RV travel (might not have done much trading if I had access to the Internet anyway because I am not a day trader). And as I reported in the following thread, I lost 4.5% in 2011, but when 2010 was taken into account, I did not do bad in the long run. Also, a big percentage of my stash is always kept off the table.

http://www.early-retirement.org/foru...1-a-59117.html

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound OK, as a picture is worth a thousand words, here's the comparison of my portfolio to the S&P 500 in the two-year period of 2010-2011.

Oh. I see... full disclosure, huh?

This is what our portfolio looks like over the past five years. Years in which we have done nothing other than draw about 4% out -- no AA adjustments or additional purchases, for instance.

Capture.JPG

[bondi688]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Apparently the massive inflows into equities story is not true - maybe a week made all the difference. I don't have a reference yet.

Markets Soar But the Retail Investor Is Not Back (Yet) | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance

"The Wall Street Journal printed the following headline on its front page Wednesday: Individual Investors Help Drive Stock Surge. The article cites a report by mutual-fund tracker Lipper Inc. showing that $6.8 billion has flowed into stock mutual funds in just the first three weeks of this year.
But as The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Lauren Lyster point out in the accompanying video, reports of the retail investors' return may be exaggerated. The Lipper figure is the biggest inflow into equity mutual funds since 2001 yet it is nothing compared to the net outflows from 2009-2012. Over that three-year period, a total of $287 billion left the market. In December 2012 alone, $55 billion made its way out of the market as fears over the so-called fiscal cliff scared off investors."

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bondi688 Markets Soar But the Retail Investor Is Not Back (Yet) | Daily Ticker - Yahoo! Finance "The Wall Street Journal printed the following headline on its front page Wednesday: Individual Investors Help Drive Stock Surge. The article cites a report by mutual-fund tracker Lipper Inc. showing that $6.8 billion has flowed into stock mutual funds in just the first three weeks of this year. But as The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Lauren Lyster point out in the accompanying video, reports of the retail investors' return may be exaggerated. The Lipper figure is the biggest inflow into equity mutual funds since 2001 yet it is nothing compared to the net outflows from 2009-2012. Over that three-year period, a total of $287 billion left the market. In December 2012 alone, $55 billion made its way out of the market as fears over the so-called fiscal cliff scared off investors."

I figure some of the money in early Jan was "tax-gain" money. Instead of buying right back, investors figured prices might keep dropping as other investors did the same. Jan 1 - that game was over, so folks bought back in.

I did find a reference for the overall flow trends: Equity Mutual Fund Inflows - Less Than Meets the Eye

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonBoyd Oh. I see... full disclosure, huh? This is what our portfolio looks like over the past five years. Years in which we have done nothing other than draw about 4% out -- no AA adjustments or additional purchases, for instance. Attachment 15937

No, it's not full disclosure, for that would require me to list my holdings.

Anyway, your results are not bad at all. I am at about 10% above my 2007 high, but then it was because I still had part-time income that nearly covered my expenses until recently. Given that my investment style was more active than that of many people here, I should have done a bit better. Hence, I am not proud. Anyway, I am still having fun, and do not want to quit yet. Looking at my stock (without trading) and economic news gives me something else to do besides surfing the Web, when I am not RV'ing or traveling.

PS. I started to use Quicken in early 2010, when MS Money went defunct. Hence, cannot easily created a chart that goes back before 2010.

[RonBoyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound PS. I started to use Quicken in early 2010, when MS Money went defunct. Hence, cannot easily created a chart that goes back before 2010.

Yeah, I was joshing about the "full disclosure."

Anyway, when MS Money died I transferred everything into Moneydance so did not lose any data. I can go back about 20 years if I need to.

[NW-Bound]

The import from MS Money to Quicken was less than perfect for me. The holdings got transferred, but the basis of the stocks and MFs that went back to 20 years in some cases got lost. And although my portfolio turnover is low even when compared to Wellesley, as I hold around 100 positions, the transactions over the years numbered in the 1000s including all dividend payments, and not all got transferred.

[Tyro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mulligan Euell Gibbons...Talk about a blast from the past. I haven't heard that name in forever. I remember those commercials. I couldn't resist and googled him. Died in 1975, wow that was a long time ago. I guess no one under 30 would have got your joke. I truly am getting old.....

I remember the commercials, and one of the punchlines from one of the skits (though I don't recall who did it -- SNL?)

"Hi, I'm Euell Gibbons, and I'm going to eat your garage!"

[Tyro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound No, not consistently. I am certainly not that arrogant to set such aspiration. Win some, lose some.

There's nothing wrong with the aspiration; it's the expectation that's unrealistic. Reach beyond your grasp & all that...

Tyro

[Tyro]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bondi688 The Lipper figure is the biggest inflow into equity mutual funds since 2001 yet it is nothing compared to the net outflows from 2009-2012. Over that three-year period, a total of $287 billion left the market. In December 2012 alone, $55 billion made its way out of the market as fears over the so-called fiscal cliff scared off investors."

I have to wonder how much of that was coincidentally retiring Boomers changing their allocations from aggressive/working/accumulation to conservative/retired/drawing.

[samclem]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound Given that my investment style was more active than that of many people here, I should have done a bit better.

Tee-hee. Hope springs eternal. (or maybe it's optimism. Or greed. Or testosterone)

[NW-Bound]

Oh yeah! Without hope, one just crawls into a hole and waits to die.

No need to go to school to get education for better work, to change job for career advancement, or even bother to vote. Why do anything at all then?

[LOL!]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonBoyd Anyway, when MS Money died I transferred everything into Moneydance so did not lose any data. I can go back about 20 years if I need to.

Anyway, when MS Money died I kept on using it. That is, I didn't even notice that it died because it still works.