First Quarter, 2007 Investment Returns

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justin You guys that waited till after two pretty good market days are CHEATING!!!

Took a look... only one guy was 'cheating'... do you see more

[justin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Texas Proud Took a look... only one guy was 'cheating'... do you see more

Well, I was joking ( ). But honestly, I did think you were the other "cheater" - I misread your post to mean that you checked your 401k results through 4/2 or 4/3. Now I see that you meant you checked the balance for the quarterly results and you didn't "cheat". Appologies, good sir. But for the record, I was kidding about folks being cheaters anyway. It isn't like you get a prize here for super investment results!

[jdmorton]

Thought I would throw in my results (401k, which is about 90% stock): 2.0%

When the market took its dive in late Feb., I decided to track my performance results to see how fast or slow my account would recover - as a "test" to its diversification (I know, its a really short timeframe for that, but I thought it would be an interesting exercise anyway ).

Late Feb., before the first dive: 3.5% for the year

Lowest point after both dives: -1.1%

1st quarter: 2.0%

I also thought a couple of my fund results for the first quarter were interesting to me:

International fund: 4.5%
Small cap fund: 3.8%
Global: 1.7%
Large Cap funds: Three funds - Vanguard total market: 0.6%, Investment Company of America: 1.0%, AMCAP: 2.0%

As of April 5, my total return for the year is now 3.7%.

[SamHouston]

2.1% for me.

[Achiever51]

2.6% thru 3/31 for me

[kcowan]

17% through 3/31 in equities portion driven by JSDA which went crazy. 80% equities now.

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by justin Well, I was joking ( ). But honestly, I did think you were the other "cheater" - I misread your post to mean that you checked your 401k results through 4/2 or 4/3. Now I see that you meant you checked the balance for the quarterly results and you didn't "cheat". Appologies, good sir. But for the record, I was kidding about folks being cheaters anyway. It isn't like you get a prize here for super investment results!

I know you were kidding... I just wanted to check who you thought was cheating...

And yes... I did get a PRIZE... I got MONEY..

Not from here mind you, but it got me closer to my FIRE date..

[Texas Proud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan 17% through 3/31 in equities portion driven by JSDA which went crazy. 80% equities now.

AND THE WINNER IS......

[dmpi]

I'm amazed (and confused) that year after year the majority of the posters manage to beat the S&P 500 by a sizeable margin. Even professional money managers have a tough time doing that. Just what is the deal here? Do you guys really do that good? I'm not calling anybody here a cheater... But if it's true, I just want to get in on the action!

[janeeyre]

1.9%

The United States has one of the lowest market percentage gains during the last 12 months. Have you noticed that most other nations have had huge increases? --

Australia 33%
Sweden 28%
France 19%
etc.
etc.
USA 9%
Japan is below us.

What is going on? Maybe I should move 50% of my portfolio into other global markets.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmpi I'm amazed (and confused) that year after year the majority of the posters manage to beat the S&P 500 by a sizeable margin. Even professional money managers have a tough time doing that. Just what is the deal here? Do you guys really do that good? I'm not calling anybody here a cheater... But if it's true, I just want to get in on the action!

The S&P500 is dominated by large cap growth stocks. Large cap growth did rather poorly compared to other asset classes in Q1 2007, making the S&P500 easy to beat.

And this situation has been true most years since 2000.

Audrey

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 The S&P500 is dominated by large cap growth stocks.

Growth stocks? Here are the top 10 holdings in the S&P 500:

ALTRIA GROUP INC
AT&T INC.
BK OF AMERICA CP
CITIGROUP INC
EXXON MOBIL CP
GEN ELECTRIC CO
JOHNSON AND JOHNS DC
MICROSOFT CP
PFIZER INC
PROCTER GAMBLE CO

I think all would be considered value stocks except for MSFT.

For comparison, here are the top 10 holdings in Vanguard's (large) value index:

EXXON MOBIL CP
GEN ELECTRIC CO
CITIGROUP INC
BK OF AMERICA CP
PFIZER INC
JP MORGAN CHASE CO
ALTRIA GROUP INC
CHEVRON CORP
AT&T INC.
WELLS FARGO & CO

[audreyh1]

OK, so I just should have said large cap. Large cap value did pretty miserably in Q1 2007 too.

Audrey

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 OK, so I just should have said large cap. Large cap value did pretty miserably in Q1 2007 too.

Yup, not a great quarter for energy and financials.

[dmpi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 The S&P500 is dominated by large cap growth stocks. Large cap growth did rather poorly compared to other asset classes in Q1 2007, making the S&P500 easy to beat. And this situation has been true most years since 2000. Audrey

If you look at the poll done at the close of 2006, most people beat the S&P 500 for the year of 2006. And that year the S&P 500 returned better than 13%! I can understand that if you hold some international that can supercharge your return, but if you hold any bonds or fixed income that's going to knock it way down.

[wabmester]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmpi If you look at the poll done at the close of 2006, most people beat the S&P 500 for the year of 2006. And that year the S&P 500 returned better than 13%! I can understand that if you hold some international that can supercharge your return, but if you hold any bonds or fixed income that's going to knock it way down.

What strategy became popular in recent years? Slice and dice, right? Overweight small value, right? What happens when a lot of money rushes into small and value? Small gets big, value gets growthy.

The recent outperformance of small and value relative to the S&P 500 is the largest since WWII. Many believe the time has come for that to change.

[dmpi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by wab What strategy became popular in recent years? Slice and dice, right? Overweight small value, right? What happens when a lot of money rushes into small and value? Small gets big, value gets growthy. The recent outperformance of small and value relative to the S&P 500 is the largest since WWII. Many believe the time has come for that to change.

I'm just going to have start doing what you guys are doing.
If you can't beat'em... join'em.

[justin]

I can't speak for everyone else, but I established a target asset allocation and have been investing based on that target asset allocation. I'll be the first to admit that when the large caps (as represented by the SP500) outperform small caps and value and international, I'll experience some "tracking error". I like that term better than underperform the market!

[mickeyd]

1st Qy returns? Don't know for sure. I only check once a year around the end of the year. I'll get back to you in late December if that's ok.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dmpi If you look at the poll done at the close of 2006, most people beat the S&P 500 for the year of 2006. And that year the S&P 500 returned better than 13%! I can understand that if you hold some international that can supercharge your return, but if you hold any bonds or fixed income that's going to knock it way down.

Well, I matched the S&P500 in 2006, and with only 57% in equities! Reason? I had international, small cap, medium cap, and REITs in addition to large cap funds in my equity portion, and so the equity portion of my portfolio WAY outperformed the S&P500. These funds made up for any drag from bonds. I basically got the same performance as the S&P500 with significantly less risk/volatilty - a great deal IMO.

Even DODBX beat the S&P500 in 2006! It did 13.9%, and it generally holds a 60%/40% equities/bonds ratio.

Until large cap comes back in fashion - and it will one day - it won't be so hard to beat the S&P500.

Audrey