A great year so far

The S&P 500 Index is down a fraction of a percent on the year and my portfolio is up 13.2%, which means I’m beating the Index by over 13.5% in less than three months. I’m sure there are other people on this board who are up more, or at least nearly as much. I hope Anurag is around to check up on me. He was going to ensure that I was telling the truth.

Let’s keep up the good work and all have a good year, and hope there are no Black Swans.

Best of investing to you all!

Saul

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Saul,

Any stocks on your watch list that you are considering starting a position?

or do you like everything you currently own?

Are all black swans evil or are they just black and unexpected?

I am up 10.47% YTD. I have some catching up to do.

Fool on
Htownrich

Hi Saul:

I’ll throw mine in for comparison. You’re beating me, darn it!

As you know, I track the pieces separately because I have different strategies and options use:


Me Taxable  11.2%
Fiona        2.1%
Anna         1.7%

SEP/IRA      7.2%
 Funds       4.7%
 Brokerage   7.6%

All have taken a hit this week. What is interesting is that Fiona and Anna are so much lower than my Taxable account - they were within a percentage point of me a week ago, so I’ll have to investigate the reason. Probably because I have some SPY put hedging on my account.

John

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Actually they would be White Swans if you lived in Australia and thought all swans were black.

And no doubt there are good black swans too- like the discovery of penicillin was to medicine. Or the discovery of fire to primitive man.

It’s just that nature tends to do bad things a lot quicker than good things. It takes only one brief tornado to destroy all a farmer’s crops but 6 to 9 months of good weather to produce a bumper crop.

Black Swans are black and unexpected by definition but they can be good or bad. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who coined the term, considers finance bad black swan prone (bankruptcy) and biotech good black swan prone (blockbuster drug).

Denny Schlesinger

my portfolio is up 13.2%, which means I’m beating the Index by over 13.5% in less than three months

I have to jump in since this year has been amazing so far for me also.

I track two separate things: my accounts, including a Roth, an IRA, and a trading account, are up a combined 11.71% for the year; my children’s Coverdales are up an incredible 17.56%. That definitely makes up for a negative return year last year.

Thanks to Saul and everyone else here on the board. I don’t expect this rate to continue, but I am becoming a better investor each day here.

Tdonb

In the spirit of sharing, I note mine below. Note that my account has been getting a fortnightly cash infusion of approximately 0.75% of NAV. I track the performance of my account versus SPY (using VFINX as proxy) using both total return and XIRR.

Total return = [NAV - (NAV on 12/31/2014 + cash additions since 12/31/2014)]/[NAV on 12/31/2014 + cash additions since 12/31/2014], where NAV is current net asset value

XIRR is calculated using current NAV and the cash flows, beginning with NAV on 31/12/2014 and the subsequent cash additions.

I calculate returns on both USD and AUD (my home currency).


------------------------------
Total returns (USD):      5.2%
Total returns (AUD):     10.1%
Total returns (SPY, USD): 0.2%

XIRR (USD):              29.9%
XIRR (AUD):              64.7%
XIRR (SPY, USD):          1.2%
------------------------------

It was much better just a week or so back, but 'm still handily beating SPY, so shouldn’t really be complaining.

Anirban

Any stocks on your watch list that you are considering starting a position? or do you like everything you currently own?

Hi Darrell, I do like everything I own, but I am thinking of adding back a small position in ELLI, with which I am long familiar, and even was a Ticker Guide once.
Saul

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Hi Darrell, I do like everything I own, but I am thinking of adding back a small position in ELLI, with which I am long familiar, and even was a Ticker Guide once.

Very interested to hear if you end up getting back into ELLI. I still hold a small position in it based on your analysis from a long time ago. Did not realize you were once a Ticker Guide for it. Might be interesting to here your thoughts on ELLI now as compared to your analysis of the business when you were originally invested.

Very interested to hear if you end up getting back into ELLI. I still hold a small position in it based on your analysis from a long time ago. Did not realize you were once a Ticker Guide for it. Might be interesting to here your thoughts on ELLI now as compared to your analysis of the business when you were originally invested.

Hi tlynch, I really liked ELLI for a number of years. Then at the end of 2012, they said they’d be doing increased spending for future growth during the first two quarters of 2013. Well, EPS growth actually stopped not for two quarters but for seven, only resuming in the last quarter of 2014 (the most recent quarter). Earnings were:

2012 - $1.09
2013 - $0.99
2014 - $1.12

I’ve taken a tiny position (less than 1%), and I’ll see what develops.

Saul