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Surprise ... SPY Up 4.0% & AGG Up 5.5% At Mid-Year
Thanks for posting how SPY & AGG has performed and split 50/50 would have performed with a return of about 5.75%. This is something that I monitor but in mutual fund form and not in etf form.
My mutual fund 50/50 portfolio that I track is up 4.4% vs. the etf 50/50 being up 4.75%. To me, this reflects that the etf is out performing due to lower cost associated with most ets today but might not reflect all investment cost if the etf's are held in a wrap account.
With some skill and luck the investment return of my portfolio (excluding cash) according to Morningstar's portfolio manager is up 5.5% year-to-date and when factoring in trading profits puts me up about another percent. With this, I am "feeling pretty good" (as Flo says in the Progressive Insurance commericals)... and, especially, when I consider the current investment climate we have all faced over the past couple of years. My engineer high school buddy, that I have referenced in some previous post, is up about the same as we have both at times used some adaptive allocation strategies. He uses only mutual fund of indexes within his portfolio for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the Aggerate Bond Index.
While my portfolio is more complex and offers higher income generation, his is more simplified with lower income generation with his portfolio currently slightly edging me out on a total return basis for the one, three and five year periods but not over a full market cycle of the past ten years.
We are both happy with our results as we both wear a smile on our face. Indeed, investing has been good to both of us.
Thank you. My global portfolio is up modestly 3.8%, and that is good enough for us. EM equity, REIT, domestic bonds have contributed positively while developed market lagged.
Thanks for posting how SPY & AGG has performed and split 50/50 would have performed with a return of about 5.75%. This is something that I monitor but in mutual fund form and not in etf form.
My mutual fund 50/50 portfolio that I track is up 4.4% vs. the etf 50/50 being up 4.75%. To me, this reflects that the etf is out performing due to lower cost associated with most ets today but might not reflect all investment cost if the etf's are held in a wrap account.
With some skill and luck the investment return of my portfolio (excluding cash) according to Morningstar's portfolio manager is up 5.5% year-to-date and when factoring in trading profits puts me up about another percent. With this, I am "feeling pretty good" (as Flo says in the Progressive Insurance commericals)... and, especially, when I consider the current investment climate we have all faced over the past couple of years. My engineer high school buddy, that I have reference in some previous post, is up about the same as I am as we have both at times used some adaptive allocation strategies. He uses only mutual fund of indexes within his portfolio for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the Aggerate Bond Index.
While my portfolio is more complex and offers a higher income generation his is more simplified with lower income generation with his portfolio currently slightly edging me out on a total return basis for the one, three and five year periods but not over a full market cycle of the past ten years.
We are both happy with our results as we both wear smiles on our faces. Indeed, investing has been good to both of us.
Old-Skeet I am not trying to start anything here as I have always found you legit - something that can't be said for some that post on investing and especially trading boards. But you are the only investor I have ever seen anywhere anyplace that breaks down your returns minus cash. Everyone else breaks down returns based on their total portfolio balance - cash included. I am just curious why you do this. Now you throw in "when factoring trading profits". So I guess the question is assuming no withdrawals or additions, what are you up based on 1/1/16 total balance to 7/01/16 total balance.
Edit. I guess in the spirit of full disclosure I am having a bad, a really, really bad year. After a bang up 2014 and 2015, this year I am up 5.58%. I am lagging the returns of both junk corp and junk munis. Lots of reasons for my underperformance but primarily due to a lifestyle change. The only comfort I get from my low return is my worst drawdown in 2016 has been under 0.80%. But were I to figure a YTD percentage excluding cash I would be up probably 8% to 9%, albeit it would be difficult to compute. But regardless, excluding cash seems to me to be a totally meaningless and bogus percentage.
@MFO Members: (From an earlier link "Markets Confound In Year's First Half."
With dividends included, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index returned 3.84% in the year’s first six months, according to Bianco Research. Meanwhile, the Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note returned roughly twice that, 7.97%, and the 30-year bond returned more than four times as much, 16.93%—its third-best start of the year on record. Even dowdy municipal bonds did better than stocks, with a 4.33% Regards, Ted
Old-Skeet I am not trying to start anything here as I have always found you legit - something that can't be said for some that post on investing and especially trading boards. But you are the only investor I have ever seen anywhere anyplace that breaks down your returns minus cash. Everyone else breaks down returns based on their total portfolio balance - cash included.
I have to agree. If a trading portfolio is up 100% for the year but the trading portfolio is 10% and cash is 90% of the total, excluding cash does not give a true picture.
I guess in the spirit of full disclosure I am having a bad, a really, really bad year. After a bang up 2014 and 2015, this year I am up 5.58%.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but with a well allocated portfolio including stocks, bonds and cash, a YTD return of 5.58% is actually pretty good. And frankly, if you could finish the year up 6-8% in this type of environment, I'd say you did well.
Thank you for your inquiry. I have no problem in answering your question as to why I started breaking down my performance reporting.
In reading the post of others, I discovered that some were posting investment returns only for investment positions within their portfolios and not reflecting their cash position. There were a good number of these, one being Ted as he reflected no cash being held when he reported but detailed what his investments had done. So with this, I started posting both ways with cash and without cash. In addition, since Morningstar portfolio does not take into account profit (or losses) from my trades I started including these as well. I expect you included profit and losses with your reporting; but, perhaps others did not. In addition, one very respected poster on the board made comment that changing ones allocation from time-to-time (sometimes by only a few percentage points) will not have much effect on the overall performance of ones portfolio. I felt different and wanted to point out the effect that my throttling my asset allocation from time-to-time was indeed having an impact.
Not trying to start anything, with anybody, I am just showing when reading what others say about their performance numbers that they can be derived from many varrying methods of reporting. Therefore, I felt I'd put some clarity in my reporting and make comment of things I felt might again be helpful to others. Part of my success in investing, better than forty years now, has to be able to, in part, determine when the better times are to put new money to work and when are perhaps good times to pick some of it up. For those that have followed my post on the board know that I broadcast my thinking and action. Before, I use to make comment on my success and I'd get call out by some who wanted me to declare what I was doing as I did it. Now, I am doing as some wanted which again, I feel, adds clarity. But, a good number of those that called me out, in the past, don't seem to around any more. I wonder why? I guess they were those that wanted to hit it big quickly perhaps through trading activity whereas I employ long term investing strategies and trade around the edges.
And, Junkster ... I want you to know, I by no means directed any of my comments towards you; however, I indeed appreciate you making the inquiry.
Thanks again for asking as it provided me an opportunity to write the above blurb.
Yeah, one of the many things I like about Fido FullView (and there are others, e.g. ML) is that it shows total 1y portfolio performance, period, and while I am not positive it is accurate in all respects, it includes anything you tell it to, including other accounts. Humbling when you see it say -1% or +2.6% or whatever, until you remember that it is (should be) reflecting a 30-40-50% cash position on average.
My goal is always 0% cash, otherwise I am not working hard enough.
Fortune favors the bold. - Latin Proverb
It is true that when we take chances, we stand to lose. But it is also true that we will never win anything if we never even enter the game. Lucky people are aware of the possibility of losing, and indeed they may lose often. But since the chances they take are small, the losses tend to be small. By being willing to accept small losses, they put themselves in position to make large gains. - Max Gunther
Comments
Thanks for posting how SPY & AGG has performed and split 50/50 would have performed with a return of about 5.75%. This is something that I monitor but in mutual fund form and not in etf form.
My mutual fund 50/50 portfolio that I track is up 4.4% vs. the etf 50/50 being up 4.75%. To me, this reflects that the etf is out performing due to lower cost associated with most ets today but might not reflect all investment cost if the etf's are held in a wrap account.
With some skill and luck the investment return of my portfolio (excluding cash) according to Morningstar's portfolio manager is up 5.5% year-to-date and when factoring in trading profits puts me up about another percent. With this, I am "feeling pretty good" (as Flo says in the Progressive Insurance commericals)... and, especially, when I consider the current investment climate we have all faced over the past couple of years. My engineer high school buddy, that I have referenced in some previous post, is up about the same as we have both at times used some adaptive allocation strategies. He uses only mutual fund of indexes within his portfolio for the S&P 500 Stock Index and the Aggerate Bond Index.
While my portfolio is more complex and offers higher income generation, his is more simplified with lower income generation with his portfolio currently slightly edging me out on a total return basis for the one, three and five year periods but not over a full market cycle of the past ten years.
We are both happy with our results as we both wear a smile on our face. Indeed, investing has been good to both of us.
Thank you. My global portfolio is up modestly 3.8%, and that is good enough for us. EM equity, REIT, domestic bonds have contributed positively while developed market lagged.
Edit. I guess in the spirit of full disclosure I am having a bad, a really, really bad year. After a bang up 2014 and 2015, this year I am up 5.58%. I am lagging the returns of both junk corp and junk munis. Lots of reasons for my underperformance but primarily due to a lifestyle change. The only comfort I get from my low return is my worst drawdown in 2016 has been under 0.80%. But were I to figure a YTD percentage excluding cash I would be up probably 8% to 9%, albeit it would be difficult to compute. But regardless, excluding cash seems to me to be a totally meaningless and bogus percentage.
With dividends included, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index returned 3.84% in the year’s first six months, according to Bianco Research. Meanwhile, the Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note returned roughly twice that, 7.97%, and the 30-year bond returned more than four times as much, 16.93%—its third-best start of the year on record. Even dowdy municipal bonds did better than stocks, with a 4.33%
Regards,
Ted
But, that's just me.
Thank you for your inquiry. I have no problem in answering your question as to why I started breaking down my performance reporting.
In reading the post of others, I discovered that some were posting investment returns only for investment positions within their portfolios and not reflecting their cash position. There were a good number of these, one being Ted as he reflected no cash being held when he reported but detailed what his investments had done. So with this, I started posting both ways with cash and without cash. In addition, since Morningstar portfolio does not take into account profit (or losses) from my trades I started including these as well. I expect you included profit and losses with your reporting; but, perhaps others did not. In addition, one very respected poster on the board made comment that changing ones allocation from time-to-time (sometimes by only a few percentage points) will not have much effect on the overall performance of ones portfolio. I felt different and wanted to point out the effect that my throttling my asset allocation from time-to-time was indeed having an impact.
Not trying to start anything, with anybody, I am just showing when reading what others say about their performance numbers that they can be derived from many varrying methods of reporting. Therefore, I felt I'd put some clarity in my reporting and make comment of things I felt might again be helpful to others. Part of my success in investing, better than forty years now, has to be able to, in part, determine when the better times are to put new money to work and when are perhaps good times to pick some of it up. For those that have followed my post on the board know that I broadcast my thinking and action. Before, I use to make comment on my success and I'd get call out by some who wanted me to declare what I was doing as I did it. Now, I am doing as some wanted which again, I feel, adds clarity. But, a good number of those that called me out, in the past, don't seem to around any more. I wonder why? I guess they were those that wanted to hit it big quickly perhaps through trading activity whereas I employ long term investing strategies and trade around the edges.
And, Junkster ... I want you to know, I by no means directed any of my comments towards you; however, I indeed appreciate you making the inquiry.
Thanks again for asking as it provided me an opportunity to write the above blurb.
Respectfully,
Old_Skeet