2016 YTD investment performance thread

[devans0]

I am surprised he would have emerging market bonds or municipals (except for taxable ports) in his buy and hold model portfolio.

Any how, my thinking was skewed due my ports having a large cash position, and that made me attribute some of the strong results reported in the thread to brilliance or timing which clearly is not the case, so can easily see how some folks could have double digit performance. While I like dry powder, I should probably cap it at 10-15% in the future

I don't have any bonds. I'm also a little loose on some of the others, but the basics for me are to over weigh value and small cap. Luck plays a role too. I was 50% cash as Brexit hit. I gambled on waiting until the vote outcome, but the vote was called so close but then breaking on the last day seemed wrong. I jumped all in the second day. That added ~2% (INDY, FCOM, IJR, IJS, FENY, FREL, IVE and VTSMX).

 

[NW-Bound]

I'm up 10%.

It's not me, it's my 1% AUM wealth manager dude that did it.

Blame him, it's his fault.

Man, what's his track record?

If he did it for you every year, you should be able to buy all of us lobsters FedEx'ed from Maine (if we are nice to you that is).

 

[audreyh1]

I think many of us have balanced portfolio with significant percentage in bond funds. Bond funds have outperformed the S&P 500 index YDT. I think most of us with balanced portfolio may be outperforming the market thanks to the diversification.

It depends on your international equity exposure. If you have even a modest chunk in international stocks that may be enough to cancel out the bond outperformance.

I have to say the YTD numbers on VWINX are just jaw-dropping. Heavy bond and US centric large value tilt clearly was an advantage for the moment.

 

[aja8888]

DW's old 401K portfolio that we rolled to a Schwab IRA when she retired a few years ago (5?) is up 11.4% YTD.

The portfolio is small (less than $75K) and consists of 15 % cash and dividend stocks that include, MO, T, GE, ABBV, AAPL, and ABT in equal amounts. This has done surprisingly well since she started with $38K and has taken out $2 - $3K per year to help granddaughter while in college.

My accounts include:

Vanguard Solo 401K, IRA and taxable brokerage - up 6.4% YTD (div, REIT, health care index funds, and also heavy in Wellington and Wellsley)

Schwab IRA - SCHD, SCHF, MO, T, EPD, AAPL, CHSCM, 15% cash - up 4% YTD - I pull combined RMDs from this yearly.

PenFed IRA - 100% 3% CDs

I own only about 5% emerging market/international securities in this mix. Good thing.

 

[Danmar]

Up 6.6% total return YTD. 100% CDN dividend paying equities. All taxable. Was about 9% until Brexit.

 

[Danmar]

Wow, a lot of good YTD gains. Most of us are beating the market. I am impressed. Let's keep it up.

Agree. I have outperformed the market by an average of 3-4% per year since I started investing in 1997. Wasn't difficult just had to be very lucky. Downside is I have never been sufficiently diversified. For the first 15 years basically just owned CDN banks. More diversified now but still not enough. Certainly wouldn't recommend this approach and in fact hesitate to even mention it. Better lucky than smart any day!!

 

[eytonxav]

I was 50% cash as Brexit hit. I gambled on waiting until the vote outcome, but the vote was called so close but then breaking on the last day seemed wrong. I jumped all in the second day. That added ~2% (INDY, FCOM, IJR, IJS, FENY, FREL, IVE and VTSMX).

Good move. I waited a bit too long as I was anticipating a few more days of the downdraft.

 

[Sunset]

Agree. I have outperformed the market by an average of 3-4% per year since I started investing in 1997. Wasn't difficult just had to be very lucky. Downside is I have never been sufficiently diversified. For the first 15 years basically just owned CDN banks. More diversified now but still not enough. Certainly wouldn't recommend this approach and in fact hesitate to even mention it. Better lucky than smart any day!!

You might look at XIU for easy CDN diversification with low MER fee.

 

[Danmar]

You might look at XIU for easy CDN diversification with low MER fee.

Hard to switch as cap gains are high 7 figures. Have been switching out a bit at a time, paying the tax while preserving div cash flow.

 

[NW-Bound]

Agree. I have outperformed the market by an average of 3-4% per year since I started investing in 1997. Wasn't difficult just had to be very lucky. Downside is I have never been sufficiently diversified. For the first 15 years basically just owned CDN banks. More diversified now but still not enough. Certainly wouldn't recommend this approach and in fact hesitate to even mention it. Better lucky than smart any day!!

I have been lucky too, at times. But it's just not consistent.

 

[RobbieB]

Man, what's his track record?

If he did it for you every year, you should be able to buy all of us lobsters FedEx'ed from Maine (if we are nice to you that is).

My FA has done well, he is worth his salt. I had 2 other accounts with other firms and he just wasted those guys so I closed those and gave him more dough to play with. He's an old grey haired guy like me and has been doing this for a while. He is a CFP and doesn't panic and does not "stir the pot" a lot.

 

[NW-Bound]

OK. Watch for my PM for the address to send some of your beloved lobsters, so I can see how good they are.

 

[ziggy29]

I'm not much for market timing, but the Brexit fallout did trigger a rebalance into buying more international equities. So far that has worked out well, but that drama is only in about the second inning.

 

[ownyourfuture]

Taxable Account: 502k +6.84%
IRA: 117k +9.32%
401k: 232k YTD return info isn't available right now, & that's probably for the best. In July 2015, Vanguard removed 4 of the 5 funds I was invested in.
The only one remaining is International Growth.

I procrastinated, & just let the cash from the sale of those 4 set in the Vanguard Retirement Savings Trust III

As cash goes, I suppose it could be a lot worse. After expenses, the yield is around 1.40%

 

[Toocold]

I only track performance of my primary investment account in which I choose individual stocks. Up 12.5% this year! This made up for the poor performance due to energy stocks last year.

 

[FIREd]

My Vanguard accounts (the bulk of my investments) are up 9.3% YTD with a 55/45 AA.

 

[dallas27]

What are you invested in? Wellington (indicative of a 60/40 AA) has returned 8.39% a year over the last 3 years.

A lot of international has offset my us returns. No fixed.

I'm looking forward to int eventually stopping underperforming, hopefully in less than 10-20 years.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[NW-Bound]

My Vanguard accounts (the bulk of my investments) are up 9.3% YTD with a 55/45 AA.

No more biotech for you, apparently. Good move, as biotech getting creamed recently, far worse than I could imagine.

 

[COcheesehead]

This may have been mentioned before, but a great place for benchmarking your performance is Openfolio.com. You can compare your results to your peers, the markets, your age group, a whole bunch of options. It also gives you insight into your portfolio that you many not know like beta and total yield. Fun and interesting.

 

[FIREd]

No more biotech for you, apparently. Good move, as biotech getting creamed recently, far worse than I could imagine.

Our large biotech exposure was due to DW's job (employer's stock) and we unwound that position when she retired last year. The timing of our exit from the sector was fortuitous.

 

[NW-Bound]

In 1999, my brother said that at the company that he just joined, a gal quit so that she could cash out her 7-figure 401k. This gal made out well, because we all know how the "new-economy" stocks crashed in early 2000. She was just a low-level worker, but had been with the company fairly early, and was buying stocks dirt cheap.

My brother was just joining, so he was accumulating company shares at top prices. I don't know if he ever recovered, but never ask.

 

[NW-Bound]

By the way, for people who do not know, there's a sweet tax deal for cases like the above.

The law allows one to roll out the company shares in a 401k to an after-tax account, and pay only income tax on the original share price. Then, when one sells the shares from the after-tax account, he only pays the cap gain tax rate on the difference between current value and that lower cost basis. Nice!

However, in order to do the above, you must be at least 59-1/2, or have left the company. The latter requirement was the reason for that gal to quit.

 

[sengsational]

This may have been mentioned before, but a great place for benchmarking your performance is Openfolio.com.

A couple of strikes though:
Strike 1: You MUST give them access to your online accounts (a show-stopper for me). Maybe the financial institutions should offer a read-only password! I might release that one.
Strike 2: They won't let you key-in (or paste-in) your portfolio.
Strike 3: They don't have a way to manage non-publicly traded things (like the stuff in big company 401k's). They could allow a proxy, but they just expect you to leave-out those 401k positions.

Great idea, but they've got something up their sleeve besides just wanting to let people measure their performance. You can do something similar with MorningStar Instant X-Ray, but I don't think it calculates a beta.

 

[COcheesehead]

A couple of strikes though:
Strike 1: You MUST give them access to your online accounts (a show-stopper for me). Maybe the financial institutions should offer a read-only password! I might release that one.
Strike 2: They won't let you key-in (or paste-in) your portfolio.
Strike 3: They don't have a way to manage non-publicly traded things (like the stuff in big company 401k's). They could allow a proxy, but they just expect you to leave-out those 401k positions.

Great idea, but they've got something up their sleeve besides just wanting to let people measure their performance. You can do something similar with MorningStar Instant X-Ray, but I don't think it calculates a beta.

Fidelity publishes their stats for comparison in your accounts so they can't be too bad of an outfit. I think there is value in what they provide. Your results may vary.

 

[simple girl]

4.24% YTD (through 7/1/16)