Fantastic 12 month returns but ...

[Lsbcal]

I have a few funds I look at on Morningstar from time to time. Looking at these recent 12 month returns, I had to do a double take. Wow, they are fantastic. See the 12 month return column below ... 40% for small cap value, 31% for emerging markets.

But then I remembered that in Feb 2016 the market had hit a rough spot and there was much angst. So we are really just seeing a climb out of that correction plus some recent good performance. I love it but have to keep that perspective.

So I added the 3 year return numbers (right most column) and then things looked more reasonable. Still good but more in line with historical returns.

 

[Big_Hitter]

volatility is volatile

 

[pb4uski]

I wonder about those numbers... just got this off Vanguard's website:

Average annual returns—updated monthly as of 01/31/2017

1 Year
3 Year
5 Year
10 Year Since Inception
09/27/2011
FTSE All World ex-US Adm 15.25% 1.61% 4.71% — 6.11%

 

[audreyh1]

I have a few funds I look at on Morningstar from time to time. Looking at these recent 12 month returns, I had to do a double take. Wow, they are fantastic. See the 12 month return column below ... 40% for small cap value, 31% for emerging markets.

But then I remembered that in Feb 2016 the market had hit a rough spot and there was much angst. So we are really just seeing a climb out of that correction plus some recent good performance. I love it but have to keep that perspective.

So I added the 3 year return numbers (right most column) and then things looked more reasonable. Still good but more in line with historical returns.

Well that's because we had a pretty good selloff in February a year ago, and I think the bottom was just about 12 months ago.

 

[DrRoy]

Cherry picking the start point can often provide any result that you want.

 

[NW-Bound]

Comparing to a low market point does make us wish we bet the farm at that point. But we did not.

And then, the market tanks again. And we get scared, and do not. It just keeps repeating. Woulda, shoulda...

One of these days, I will just do it. In 100%. And go on margin too. That will teach y'all.

 

[Lsbcal]

Cherry picking the start point can often provide any result that you want.

I usually look at 12 months as the minimum time to get a reading on performance. I'm just saying that the drama and angst one might see in articles probably has more to do with the peculiarities of this particular 12 month period.

 

[Lsbcal]

I wonder about those numbers... just got this off Vanguard's website:

The numbers I happened to pick up were for Feb 22, yesterday. The VG numbers are a slightly different time period and that decline in Jan to Feb 2016 had a strong affect on the numbers.

Maybe I should get into the alarmist website article business? Nah.

 

[Sandy & Shirley]

Nice returns, but they are not all that unusual for the yearly RORs for the end of February.

As my name indicates, I am a computer geek. The tools that are available to analyze the market are poor at best, totally useless is a closer definition, so, as a geek, I wrote my own tools. We follow 355 of the No Transaction Fee funds offered by Fidelity. We have nice annuities, so none of the bond funds are included.

Our Market snapshot of the 355 funds for 2/22/16 shows the one year S&P 500 at 21.58%, Russell 2000 at 38.03%, NASDAQ at 28.34%, and DOW at 24.80% for a numeric average of 28.19% for “the market”.

24 of the 355 funds did better than 40%, 33 did better than Russell (the highest index), and 90 did better than the 28.19% average market return.

Half of your list is below the 28.19% market average, and 3 of the 8 performed lower than the S&P 500 21.58% which was the lowest market index ROR.

Keep in mind that only 25.4% of my list of 355 funds had RORs higher than the average market ROR. 50% of your list did better than average!

 

[Sandy & Shirley]

I usually look at 12 months as the minimum time to get a reading on performance. I'm just saying that the drama and angst one might see in articles probably has more to do with the peculiarities of this particular 12 month period.

My primary view of the market is a composite of the 3 month, 6 month, and 1 year RORs. I sort my list on each of those RORs, assign a rank (1 best, 2 second best, …) and then sort my composite view based on the sum of the ranks for all 3 RORs at the same time.

Just because something has a number 1 rank for 1 year does not make it the best if its 3 month return was 97th.