A great start to the year!

It’s been a great start to the year, and a great last two weeks for our stocks. They say that a rising tide raises all the boats. Well, the tide hasn’t really been rising very much:

Since the beginning of the year, the S&P is up 6.0%, but the Russell 2000 is almost unchanged at up 0.6%, and the IJS Small Cap Value ETF is actually down (2.1%). That comes to an average gain for the three of them of 1.5%, which is not much of a rising tide. My boat has now risen 17.2% for the year, which is not bad for less than two and a half months, and I hope that your boats are rising too. I especially hope we all have a good year!.

Best wishes to you all, and thanks for your help.

Saul

And, YES! I do know it can change overnight! I DO! I’ve been there! But I’d rather be up 17% than down 17% anyway!

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Saul

Outstanding work. The ebbs and flows of the market and our individual returns is sometimes hard to understand. Comparing your personal 2016 returns to the market in a similar manner as you have done above, what do you think has changed from 2016 to 2017 which has helped your portfolio recover?

DHeavy

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And, YES! I do know it can change overnight! I DO! I’ve been there!

It’s nice to celebrate when things go our way though! Remember to enjoy the highs as much as we ponder and worry about the lows.

Cheers to higher profits for all.

Wait till repatriation of overseas money get a big tax reduction from 35% to 15%. That $400 billion is going to be a nice help to jobs and economic growth.
https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/05/donald-trumps-cor…

Top companies with most Overseas growth:

Company Name, Cash held overseas, As of date
Apple Inc $230 billion Dec. 31
Microsoft $116.3 billion Dec. 31
Cisco Systems Inc $60.6 billion Oct. 29
Alphabet Inc $52.2 billion Dec. 31
Oracle Corp $51.4 billion Aug. 31
General Electric Co $38.6 billion Dec. 31
Qualcomm Inc $27.9 billion Dec. 25
Pfizer Inc $14 billion Sept. 30
Intel Corp $13.6 billion Dec. 31
Amazon Inc $8.6 billion Dec. 31
United Technnologies Corp About $6 billion
Caterpillar Inc $5 billion Sept. 30
Facebook Inc $5.10 billion Dec. 31
3M Co “Just a little over $2 billion” of cash

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/reuters-america-factbox-big-u…

A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

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Comparing your personal 2016 returns to the market in a similar manner as you have done above, what do you think has changed from 2016 to 2017 which has helped your portfolio recover?

Hi DHeavy, I’m not exactly sure what you mean by “recover,” as my portfolio was UP last year, just by not nearly as much as the S&P and Russell. As far as the rest of the question, I could just say that “I don’t really know” but I do feel I can identify a few factors. First there was the February Tech Crash last year, that peaked on Feb 11. My portfolio was down almost 20% at the bottom, and tech stocks in general were down a lot more than the S&P. Second, throughout the year, value-type stocks and beaten down commodity stocks did well, as raw materials and oil seem to have bottomed and started back up. They did a lot better than growth stocks (which were out of favor), and they helped the S&P and Russell do better than my portfolio which didn’t include any commodity companies. Thirdly, two companies that I had a lot of confidence in crashed suddenly (Skyworks and Skechers), as well as another company that I had less confidence in, but also had a sudden crash (Infiniti). All three managements had thought everything was going just fine apparently, before the bottom fell out. That happens sometimes, and there’s not much that you can do about it, as it’s totally unexpected when it happens (Skechers and Skyworks were profitable and reasonable-PE companies, by the way). That took a big chunk out of my portfolio, and I felt I had done pretty well to finish positive in spite of all three of those factors.

Hope that helps,

Saul

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