Early in 2021 I decided to rearrange my portfolio and started making some changes that eventually included getting out of bond funds, adding more individual tech-growth stocks, getting out of Asian ETFs etc.
Since things have gone down quite a bit, I have had some angst wondering what things would have been like had I just continued to follow my "set it and forget it" plan.
I keep track of things in a spreadsheet that I make a copy of every weekend and update the investments and their current values. So I dug out the spreadsheet from the end of March 2021 which was close to the time I started making the changes. I updated the value of each holding with today's prices.
The results are somewhat interesting.
The two individual stocks I held at that time were JNJ and CVX. Both are up quite a bit from March 2021.
The Matthews Asian Funds are down quite a bit. All of my other funds are also down, except for a small TRP Mid East fund and VNQ REIT funds.
The ETFs I had in the metals sector including gold miner ETFs were still up.
My allocation in March 2021 was:
cash 42%
equity funds and ETFs 24%
bond funds 11.5%
REIT 4%
metal ETFs 16%
other (what ever it takes to add up to 100% since these are rough numbers)
Today I do not hold bond funds and my equity allocation is about 35%.
When I factor in my spending over the past year I end up with, compared to the amount the portfolio was worth at the end of March 2021.
Had I just kept exactly what I had in March 2021 I would be down (4.17%).
After fiddling with things I am down about (7.5%).
I did not try to calculate down from the high point.
I guess this is a data point in favor of sticking with your allocation, although the smaller loss percentage might be affected by the 10% increase in equity allocation before the drop happened.
I take some solace that it seems I have not messed things up as bad as I may have thought.
It will also be interesting to do this comparison after the market picks back up to see if my increased equity allocation and increased risk will rebound better than the conservative allocation.
Since things have gone down quite a bit, I have had some angst wondering what things would have been like had I just continued to follow my "set it and forget it" plan.
I keep track of things in a spreadsheet that I make a copy of every weekend and update the investments and their current values. So I dug out the spreadsheet from the end of March 2021 which was close to the time I started making the changes. I updated the value of each holding with today's prices.
The results are somewhat interesting.
The two individual stocks I held at that time were JNJ and CVX. Both are up quite a bit from March 2021.
The Matthews Asian Funds are down quite a bit. All of my other funds are also down, except for a small TRP Mid East fund and VNQ REIT funds.
The ETFs I had in the metals sector including gold miner ETFs were still up.
My allocation in March 2021 was:
cash 42%
equity funds and ETFs 24%
bond funds 11.5%
REIT 4%
metal ETFs 16%
other (what ever it takes to add up to 100% since these are rough numbers)
Today I do not hold bond funds and my equity allocation is about 35%.
When I factor in my spending over the past year I end up with, compared to the amount the portfolio was worth at the end of March 2021.
Had I just kept exactly what I had in March 2021 I would be down (4.17%).
After fiddling with things I am down about (7.5%).
I did not try to calculate down from the high point.
I guess this is a data point in favor of sticking with your allocation, although the smaller loss percentage might be affected by the 10% increase in equity allocation before the drop happened.
I take some solace that it seems I have not messed things up as bad as I may have thought.
It will also be interesting to do this comparison after the market picks back up to see if my increased equity allocation and increased risk will rebound better than the conservative allocation.
