2020 Investment Performance Thread
- Thread starter robnplunder
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Dtail
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Well it is kind of - doesn't low scores win
Fermion
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I was thinking more of low balances but yeah I guess you are right.
ShokWaveRider
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I would like to know just out of sheer curiosity, does 24% or 30% down in any given year REALLY make a difference to anyone here? If not what is the real pain point? Yes if you are like me you do not like any financial pain points, but we all have our limits. Mine is about 5% down.... LOL
Fermion
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It doesn't make a difference right now for us as the entire amount we are down is contained in my wife's 401K which we had no plans to touch for another 10 years. My accounts are all up 20% to 40% this year and the taxable account I control is up 17% YTD.
Long term though, if her 401K does not recover in 10 years, we will have a much leaner retirement at age 60 than I was planning. I had hoped her 401K would continue to grow while we depleted our other accounts.
I don't care greatly though. I make the best plans I can for the future with the understanding that it is possible neither of us is there to see it. What good is $4,000,000 at age 70 if you get stage 4 pancreatic cancer at age 58 (or die of the coronavirus at age 50).
There is always money in the banana stand.
ShokWaveRider
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Makes a tremendous amount of sense. Plus at 70+ I think one's spending goes down anyway.
RetireAge50
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I guess it would hurt when stocks really went down over longer periods of time. Since I started investing in 1989 the average return is currently 8.5% per year. Except for the very first year in 1989 there has never been a loss cumulatively.
Well for me I was hoping to retire in 7-8 yrs and that was with the assumption that the market would return 4-6% yoy until then. So now I have to wonder how long before I recover the -26% just to get back to where I was and then how much longer to get to my final number. That's what I get for not market timing even though my 6th sense was telling me we're close to some kind of a correction. Then I have to wonder about the other unknown possibilities which could make things even worse like how much further this market would drop, some are saying it could be another 20-30%, then what does that mean to the job market, will I be unemployed for a while, what will happen in the real estate market etc etc. However, for those sitting on a pile of cash this is a great opportunity to buy low.
youbet
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(20.3) YTD
Other than low equity allocations, how are you folks with single digit loses YTD doing it? I was at about 56% equities (much in TSM) when the trouble started, so I would normally have expected my aggregate losses to be smaller than they are. But with my bond funds down (4%) to (11%) YTD, they've provided little ballast.
Fortunately, I'm in pretty good shape to just do nothing and ride it out at this point. Still, it's aggravating.
The Great Recession occurred in my 3rd and 4th year of retirement. Now this craziness in my 14th. A lot less time to benefit from recovery this time.
Other than low equity allocations, how are you folks with single digit loses YTD doing it? I was at about 56% equities (much in TSM) when the trouble started, so I would normally have expected my aggregate losses to be smaller than they are. But with my bond funds down (4%) to (11%) YTD, they've provided little ballast.
Fortunately, I'm in pretty good shape to just do nothing and ride it out at this point. Still, it's aggravating.
The Great Recession occurred in my 3rd and 4th year of retirement. Now this craziness in my 14th. A lot less time to benefit from recovery this time.
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MikeyMarks
Dryer sheet aficionado
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Fermion
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Yeah it is. Market timing actually works, much to the chagrin of all of the naysayers. All it takes is a catastrophe and you are back in the game.
Funny we are not seeing those charts of the S&P500 spread out over a decade with the caption "where is the dip?" I think the dip is kind of obvious now.
RetireAge50
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I think stock picking and market timing works but the problem is it is work. [emoji846]
vince
Recycles dryer sheets
-14.6%....50/50 (target) …….-27.85%/-1.29%
KCGeezer
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Another buy and hold type that talked myself out of adjusting AA a month or so ago. Down 21% on 60/35/5.
We’re good but coulda, woulda, shoulda.
I can’t find it but wasn’t there a Steve Goodman song “Don’t go should’n on me”? Something new to obsess about I guess.
We’re good but coulda, woulda, shoulda.
I can’t find it but wasn’t there a Steve Goodman song “Don’t go should’n on me”? Something new to obsess about I guess.
Not quite single digit 11.9 off the high, 10.15 YTD. I did it by market timing.
However it was market timing combined with a toss of logic. It seemed to become clear to me that the dramatic fall was virus driven a little before Feb 25. On Feb 25th I was sitting in front of the computer logged into Fidelity and just went nuts with the sell button dropping 30% of my stocks into cash.
My logic was that this was a problem that will likely get worse, almost zero chance it will get better in the short term (months). Just seemed to be the thing to do.
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pb4uski
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Here is something scary. I have very good cash flow data for my retirement nestegg for 2016 to now... and having sold most equities to cash recently, I was curious as to how I did... from 12/31/2015 to Friday 3/20/2020 my average annual return was 3.82% using XIRR... however, if I back the end date up slightly to 12/31/2019 it was 9.03%. Now that is depressing. 
So this disruption has caused my average annual return for ~4 years to decline dramatically.
I have less reliable cash flows for 2013 to 2015, but the results are broadly similar... 8.16% for 12/31/2012 through 12/31/2019 drops to 5.43% for 12/31/2012 to 3/20/2020.
So this disruption has caused my average annual return for ~4 years to decline dramatically.
I have less reliable cash flows for 2013 to 2015, but the results are broadly similar... 8.16% for 12/31/2012 through 12/31/2019 drops to 5.43% for 12/31/2012 to 3/20/2020.
It’s just point in time math. Things can get worse.Here is something scary. I have very good cash flow data for my retirement nestegg for 2016 to now... and having sold most equities to cash recently, I was curious as to how I did... from 12/31/2015 to Friday 3/20/2020 my average annual return was 3.82% using XIRR... however, if I back the end date up slightly to 12/31/2019 it was 9.03%. Now that is depressing.
So this disruption has caused my average annual return for ~4 years to decline dramatically.
I have less reliable cash flows for 2013 to 2015, but the results are broadly similar... 8.16% for 12/31/2012 through 12/31/2019 drops to 5.43% for 12/31/2012 to 3/20/2020.
pb4uski
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Given that I am mostly out of equities now they can't get much worse for me.
Dtail
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Given that I am mostly out of equities now they can't get much worse for me.
What is your current equities%
I saw you were down ~20% a couple of days ago.
Have you abandoned the generic buy/hold concept for now?
Andre1969
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I'm down about 29% YTD, as of Friday's close. Off the Feb 19 peak, I'm down about 32%. It's definitely more comforting to look at the percentages, rather than the dollar amounts!
steelyman
Moderator Emeritus
One psychological trick is to compare your portfolio balance against what it was on 12/31/2018. 2019 was outsized in terms of performance and most people saw a big drop in Q4 2018.
For my retirement portfolio, it’s still less than it was at the end of 2018, but the amount is a lot less frightening.
[ADDED] 2015 is the most recent year that my portfolio balance at year-end was less than its current balance (for whatever that’s worth)
For my retirement portfolio, it’s still less than it was at the end of 2018, but the amount is a lot less frightening.
[ADDED] 2015 is the most recent year that my portfolio balance at year-end was less than its current balance (for whatever that’s worth)
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Andre1969
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I just checked...I'm down about 9.7% from 12/31/18. And only down about 4.3% from the bottom of that little dip, which was 12/24/18.
Still, the last time my overall balance was this low was August 2017. But, like most things, time softens all wounds. Getting put back to the Summer of 17 isn't so bad. In contrast, at the bottom of the Great Recession, I calculated that I had lost every dollar of profit I had ever made!
Still, the last time my overall balance was this low was August 2017. But, like most things, time softens all wounds. Getting put back to the Summer of 17 isn't so bad. In contrast, at the bottom of the Great Recession, I calculated that I had lost every dollar of profit I had ever made!
Down 9.68% YTD. Went 100% cash on Thursday. We will probably get back into the market at some point, but at age 61 with DW likely to lose her job, no pensions, just can't afford to watch our retirement decrease further. We'll be fine, even if we stayed all cash, but I worry about my kids future. Hopefully, everything will work out great and we'll all come back and revisit in 2030 and brag about how much money we made in the market after the Coronavirus scare.
