# 2011 Returns



## Franky Jr (Oct 5, 2009)

Hey All,

For fun how did everyone do...

My 2011 XIRR was -8.7


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

I got -1.8%

http://www.moneysmartsblog.com/2011-portfolio-investment-performance-not-too-bad/


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## Xoron (Jun 22, 2010)

- 7.1% here. Fairly happy with that result, but sure wish it was a + rather than a -


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

Franky Jr said:


> Hey All,
> 
> For fun how did everyone do...
> 
> My 2011 XIRR was -8.7


what is it XIRR?


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## Xoron (Jun 22, 2010)

gibor said:


> what is it XIRR?


using Excel, it's the internal rate of return.

Starting cash balance
+ cash added / removed during the year
Ending cash balance.

Xirr = return of your portfolio

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/xirr-HP005209341.aspx


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

+ 7.1 thanks to big play in early 2011 and a couple hit and run trades in last month


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

+4.08%.


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## doctrine (Sep 30, 2011)

-2.5%, but started when the TSX was > 14000. Invested in the likes of BCE, ENB, Telus and Transcanada in Aug and Sep and staged a huge comeback.


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## Argonaut (Dec 7, 2010)

32%

In pure dollar amounts it isn't much compared to others, though. I'll only be reaching $50,000 in net worth this year. Cost of living in Victoria is very high, so it's hard to add to the principal as well. On the plus side, I've got confidence from the experience and affirmation that I'm good at investing. The path to wealth seems more clear.


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## Fain (Oct 11, 2009)

2011
+20% buying and selling only SIRI equity and options

2012 New Portfolio CHL, SIRI, WJA
+3% YTD


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

+8.3% although I wanted double digits ;-)

Great job Argo and Fain, congrats.


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## Causalien (Apr 4, 2009)

~ +1% combining all portfolios. A lot of my options are still on going, so until expiration, I can't really tell what the real gain and loss is. 

Redeemed option cash gains are offset by mark to market of current on going options.

Fundamentals is doing much worst, since I went waco buying a lot of the distressed assets that fell more in value near the end 2011. Fundamentals loss, Technicals gain pour moi.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

About -8%, but almost half of that was a really really bad stock pick.


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## stephenheath (Apr 3, 2009)

+6.9% with all dividends included and I'm happy with that. My retirement plan assumes I make a 6% return each year so I'm now a tiny bit further ahead of schedule.


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## Square Root (Jan 30, 2010)

about 6% total return. more than half were divs. Could have been a lot worse.


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## eulogy (Oct 29, 2011)

I did the math and I actually ended up at 0.33% for the year. That's with total invested compared to what it was worth at the end of the year.

The XIRR computed return is 0.68%.

I started in May investing. Strategy was passive portfolio. I think the big reason I was able to avoid losses is that I have a nice chunk of my portfolio in US dollars and the US dollar improved over the year.

I'm still new to the investing process, so a 10% swing either way doesn't really mean much for me.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

eulogy said:


> I'm still new to the investing process, so a 10% swing either way doesn't really mean much for me.


You did really well given the time of year you started investing.

Don't even feel the least bit discouraged.


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

exactly 0.00% ...

so about -2.55% real return.


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## eulogy (Oct 29, 2011)

KaeJS said:


> You did really well given the time of year you started investing.
> 
> Don't even feel the least bit discouraged.


Not discouraged at all. I still have many decades to go with this.  I'm actually pretty happy as I was expecting to be down 4-5% on the year.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

On my equities I'm down about 4%, taking in consideration that about half of my monies in Cash related components (GIC , HISA, US$) where I gained 2-3%, it's not very bad. ... almost b/e thanks to US dividend champions, canadian telecoms and REITs...
Like doctrine I started and did major investments in Q1 when TSX was very high....also did several very bad newbie mistakes.... hope this year will be better


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## Belguy (May 24, 2010)

My 'Couch Potato' loss of 4 per cent is not looking so great alongside some of these other returns. However, I remain and investor rather than a trader.

As stated previously, I expect to become rich by the age of 150 as a result of my investments.


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## Spidey (May 11, 2009)

+ 1.75% for me. I'm somewhat disappointed, especially after riding high in May, but it could have been worse.


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## avrex (Nov 14, 2010)

*Well, at least I beat my benchmark.*

My 2011 return was *-0.9%*

Not great, but I was happy to out-performed the benchmark that I set for myself. Don't forget to create a benchmark for yourself to help you guage how you are doing.
My Benchmark (65% VT, 35% XBB) = *-4.4%*


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## Brian K (Jan 29, 2011)

My return was 2.53%. Not sure if I understand the XIRR (will look into that) but my % return on all assets was (Total Assets at start of 2012) / (Total Assets at start of 2011). This also includes my living expenses of 60K including all taxes. I'm relatively happy with that considering the crap that happened in the 2nd half of the year.


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## bigcake (Apr 3, 2009)

+20% by trading


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

My 2012 Spreadsheet says I am already up 2.88% for 2012.

Should I just quit now?


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## Jon202 (Apr 14, 2009)

DRIP portfolio of 8 canadian DRIPs is + 16% with no activity all year. Return due to an overweight position in Enbridge and everything was flat or down a point or two.

RRSP couch potato consisting of VTI, VEU, XIU, REI.un was flat as RioCan had a nice run up (+20%) and I choose not to sell to rebalance but rather use new money and distributions to rebalance.


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## Causalien (Apr 4, 2009)

Tax package arrived... Did more wrap up.

House comparables dropped in value from 2011 peak by 20% back to reality, which is the same price as the beginning of the year.

An alternative novelty investment that I did got this return after 6 months of operation.

Costs
$1500 in equipment
$180 in maintenance
$450 in equipment write off (assuming 30% write off per year)

Return
$770

+equipment + return - maintenance - depreciation = $140 in total equity. ~ 9%. Extrapolating further with slower depreciation and a full year of operation. 2012 should bring in ~20%


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Quicken gives me a total 2011 IRR of 3.2%, but looking at the numbers it only accounts for stocks I held for all of 2011.... unless someone knows a way around this? I think I'm going to move towards a KaeJS-esque Google-Doc-style of tracking in the future, because it does even more functions than Excel

I wanted to try this XIRR function so I exported Quicken transactions in 2011 to Google Docs and then added the value of equities on Jan 3/Dec 30 2011. I had to multiply all the values by -1 (positive values invested, negative returns?) XIRR gurus could take a quick look here maybe I did it completely wrong

With dividends:
TFSA XIRR 10.7%
RRSP XIRR 0.9%
Non Reg XIRR 4.3%
Overall *5% flat* (but only .85% without dividends..)

I don't know if it even makes any sense to include dividends in an IRR? I just put them with the date as a return. To me, a performance stat is useless without them because I base my investments mainly on dividends. With this strategy, I didn't really expect much return in my second year investing. This also doesn't account for my idle cash (mostly earning 1.5%) and makes me wonder if I should try to invest more in 2012

Sold 1 stock for a loss in 2011 (Exelon post Fukushima d'oh!) and it bounced back higher shortly after. Held some dogs I should maybe sell, but I'm milking the dividends for now.


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

mode3sour said:


> Quicken gives me a total 2011 IRR of 3.2%, but looking at the numbers it only accounts for stocks I held for all of 2011.... unless someone knows a way around this? I think I'm going to move towards a KaeJS-esque Google-Doc-style of tracking in the future, because it does even more functions than Excel
> 
> I wanted to try this XIRR function so I exported Quicken transactions in 2011 to Google Docs and then added the value of equities on Jan 3/Dec 30 2011. I had to multiply all the values by -1 (positive values invested, negative returns?) XIRR gurus could take a quick look here maybe I did it completely wrong
> 
> ...


Mode, the easiest way to get your return is to compare beginning balance (market value of securities plus cash) with ending balance of that, then calculate the difference as percentage of beginning balance. This will give you a total return (including realized, unrealized gains, dividends, interest and all expenses) on your portfolio, not just return on equities.
To keep it simple if you made contributions early in the year I would add them to the beginning balance (I know that it may be off by 60 days or so), not 100% accurate but close enough without going nuts with the calculations. If you contribute throught the year the calculations are a bit more complex, I will leave it to others who enjoy such things ;-)


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Our XIRR for our pensions is -2.25%. The group benefit has a feature to figure it out. For our other accounts, (TFSA, RSP, non reg) I do not know the XIRR, just the total return. I need to start tracking XIRR. 

I think our overall investment returns were quite poor, but possibly beat the benchmarks. However our net worth was up 18.9%! Our best portfolio was probably our non-reg up around 9% total return.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

All I can tell you is that my net worth increased by 15% this year, for the most part that was paying down debt and adding cash, but I'm pretty cool with that.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

After 2 hours and 46 entires on Excell using XIRR, it gives me a return of "2.98023E-09" ???

This is just for one TFSA!!! Ahhhh

I think that's an error  (I cry now)


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

You did the calculation wrong somewhere.

You are experiencing too many Zer0's in your calculation. You divided too much. Your decimals are out of whack somewhere.

You either divided too much, or divided properly but forgot to multiply along the way.

What formula are you using? How are you calculating your XIRR?


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## Four Pillars (Apr 5, 2009)

Jungle said:


> After 2 hours and 46 entires on Excell using XIRR, it gives me a return of "2.98023E-09" ???
> 
> This is just for one TFSA!!! Ahhhh
> 
> I think that's an error  (I cry now)


At least it's a positive number!


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

Four Pillars said:


> At least it's a positive number!


Barely. 

0.000000000*289*


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

=XIRR(A3:A43,B3:B43,5%)

money values are on left a3:a43 and date is on right b3:b43

i made the last money value (market value) a negative number


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

Maybe you broke nearly perfectly even? What does the 5% guess do anyways? I just left it blank. It's a cool function, but yea I guess comparing market values is easier. It doesn't tell me much about trade performance because most of my gains are contributions.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Total return for the year on my tfsa was -9.7%

I think the XIRR has posted an error.


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## jcgd (Oct 30, 2011)

So what is your true return and how do you figure it? 

All I care about is my final number is bigger than all the cash I've put in. Hopefully by at lease 6% per year. 

If you own a stock, when is it compounded? Daily?


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## 0xCC (Jan 5, 2012)

Jungle said:


> Total return for the year on my tfsa was -9.7%
> 
> I think the XIRR has posted an error.


Jungle, are the 'money values' you entered only your deposits and withdrawals? Dividends should not be included in those money values because they are part of the return from your invested cash. I would also change the 5% to 0 (not % because I think Excel moves the decimal point around when using %), in my experience using 0 gives the most reliable results.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Ok so I figured out that this "2.98023E-09" is a common error with excel. 
I have been using google spreadsheets instead, MUCH better than Excel IMO.. No error!

I just have our stock portfolio to figure out so I will update next post what our XIRR is for all of our portfolios. 

Our returns are quite poor however I am still going to post them. Three of our portfolios are broken because of some bad errors I made and I am to blame for not following the index strategy properly. 

(I sold all of our bonds back in Oct 2010 AND I did not have proper portfolio to rebalance) 

I am hoping our stock portfolio gains will bring it up. Will post back soon.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

After a lot of work, I finally put it all together now. 

Grand total XIRR for all accounts is -0.67%. *98.2 equity!*, 1.8% fixed income. Stocks represent about 42% of portfolio and really saved us. 

TFSA -15.42 (ugh)
TFSA -9.31
RSP -9.35
RSP -3.02
Pension -2.21
Pension -2.26
Stocks +8.30!!

Thanks to this thread, I will start tracking our XIRR. I have three portfolios to fix now. Very disappointed in my self for messing around with stuff and not following the proper " couch potato" strategy.


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## Financial Cents (Jul 22, 2010)

Good question.

I actually haven't tracked my calendar year returns for many years. Maybe I should. Instead, I focus on NW rising (more assets, less debt), dividend income rising (dividends compounding) and RRSP asset values rising (RRSP contributions + bond assets offset equity declines) during each calendar year. 

All three were +ve in 2011.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

Here's ours...

Mine: 
RRSP (1) +3.4%
RRSP (2) +1.34%
TFSA +17.0% - Thanks to BCE
Pension +0.38%

Hers
Investment account +3.8% - mostly GIC's, 25% bond funds, 25% Equity
RRSP +4.7% - mostly low fee Mawer Mutual funds
TFSA -10.1% (no thanks to ECA)

Spousal RRSP -1.4%

At the risk of sounding smug -the best decision in 2011 was to stay in GIC's
the worst purchase/decision was to think that PBN and energy stocks were undervalued!


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

Good job Dubmac! We had one GIC and it really saved the return in one account.


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## uptoolate (Oct 9, 2011)

6.5 overall. Mainly thanks to XBB and XRB. Go figure!


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

thnx Jungle - I think mine was more a case of paralysis rather than any real - understanding of the markets.
well done uptoolate - I like your "by line"


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