# What were your Investment returns for 2012.



## Spidey

So how did you do? What was your asset allocation? 

I was hoping for double-digits but I'm reasonably pleased with +9.90% IRR on a portfolio that averaged 65% equity and 35% fixed-income. (Started the year at 60/40.)


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## KaeJS

+17.70% IRR

100% Equity. All Stocks. All Trades.
I don't have any positions right now.

Spidey, you were so close to the double digit! You basically got it! It's impressive that you managed that with your asset mix, as well.


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## mrPPincer

edit* XIRR is 11.62%
(not the 11.82% as estimated prior to me downloading OpenOffice and crunching the numbers)

I can hardly beleive it; this from a frequently rebalanced passive index portfolio.
I'll come back later with more accurate numbers; what I did was subtract new money that was added this year but not the growth on it,
and I have not yet added in some year-end dividends or interest for this month, so it could actually be closer to 12%

allocations
10% cash
equity: 
30% CDN and 20% US unhedged (with 10% REIT allocation of the full portfolio as a subset within those two)
10% US hedged
25% foreign split equally between 4 td e-funds, one of them hedged to CDN$
5% emerging mkts

close to 12% from a couch potato portfolio, very highly diversified, meaning individual stock risk was absolutely miniscule, no stress, little to no work necessary, I love it!
Still, not to say I'm not still planning to keep on moving forward on education in options and fundamental analysis :biggrin:

*This portfolio has gone through a slight transformation in 2012
it began the year 10% cash : 30% CDN : 30% US(7.5% hedged) : 30% foreign(7.5% hedged), all in the td e-series.

I built up the EM position using DCA with cibc em fund, then sold that, buying some VWO on the same day.
When purchasing the REITs I sold the equivalent amount of CDN or US index funds on the same day. 
I don't think these actions will have skewed the returns a whole lot but we'll see if my returns are as good in 2013 with regular rebalancing (mostly cost-free with the use of the e-series portion)

I'm using vanguard etfs, td e-series index funds, and a small recurring purchase into PC's cibc emerging markets index fund, with the cash component in HISAs with Manitoba credit unions.


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## slacker

9.81% XIRR

I have a 90% equity 10% bond global couch potato portfolio with some REIT. Goes to show that excessive equity did not yield extra return in 2012 (for me)


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## baker3232

With about 10% cash, I was very pleased with an over-all return of 11.2%.


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## Jungle

37% stocks, 63% index mutual funds.
2% fixed income.
57% CDN
20% US
19% INT

XIRR as one big portfolio (7 accounts) *11.01% *
Last year's total return was -0.68% (not enough bonds or US funds)

Positive:
Three year total return on stock portfolio is over 30% now. Annaulized about 9.5%
Money in our oldest portfolio should double in two years, according to the rule of 72.

Networth up 22.8%! Including a 12k hit of closing costs-we paid cash.

Spending came in $23,396. (does not include mortgage interest or closing costs, BUT includes extra costs on rental property)

Our investments made more than what we spent


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## marina628

Jungle I think I will have you come to the house and do my budget lol Great numbers.I have not sorted my final numbers yet but I know they are double digits(thanks ENB )


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## Spudd

I separate mine by account. 
RSP 1: 4.7%
RSP 2: 4.7% (funny that they had identical rates of return but different contents)
TFSA: 10.2%
Cash: -23%

The cash account was where I "goofed around" buying stocks on whims. Yeah, that didn't work out so well for me. New Years resolution: extra cash goes to mortgage, not gambling on stocks. My TFSA is also individual stocks, and I have some in the RSP as well, so I do know how to pick stocks, I was just way too impulsive with the cash account. 

Asset allocation in RSP 1 is standard couch potato, 20/20/20/40 Canadian/US/International/bonds. RSP 2 varied throughout the year as I did a bit of market timing there. TFSA is all Canadian dividend stocks. Cash account is 100% equities.


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## thenegotiator

this is an interesting thread.
natural gas gains = 80%
Silver - via ETFs ( longs and shorts) =20%
Oil (via ETFS) longs and shorts= 20%
stocks gains (except AMD) = 40%
AMD loss was around 5k.
stocks/indexes (shorts) = to be known in 2013 .... I posted what i am short at.


For everything else 

there is .....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_IlPWIzFH4


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## Jungle

Sure Marina comeon over, lol. We'll have budgeting sessions. 

What's interesting is that we don't have a "set" budget. All spending is put in excel. Every month, spending is reviewed, to see how we can save more. This keeps costs in check and ensures we take every opportunity to save.

We do most things spenders do, just cheaper or more efficient:
For example:
Brew fancy coffee at home. 
Make fancy meals at home.
Use the library. 
Commute for short trips using my bicycle, instead of a second car. 
Save on utilities and grocery..

Some notable things:

$1302 was "extra" costs on the rental: Pest control and repairs. 
$2476 was spent on transit commuting to work. 
$2129 spent on furniture, because we moved in a house.


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## Jungle

Spudd said:


> I separate mine by account.
> RSP 1: 4.7%
> RSP 2: 4.7% (funny that they had identical rates of return but different contents)
> TFSA: 10.2%
> Cash: -23%
> 
> The cash account was where I "goofed around" buying stocks on whims. Yeah, that didn't work out so well for me. New Years resolution: extra cash goes to mortgage, not gambling on stocks. My TFSA is also individual stocks, and I have some in the RSP as well, so I do know how to pick stocks, I was just way too impulsive with the cash account.
> 
> Asset allocation in RSP 1 is standard couch potato, 20/20/20/40 Canadian/US/International/bonds. RSP 2 varied throughout the year as I did a bit of market timing there. TFSA is all Canadian dividend stocks. Cash account is 100% equities.


Thanks for the update Spudd. I was wondering what the 60/40 couch potato would do, that is one of my benchmarks. 
I have a hard time trusting where bonds will go.. this year I believe xbb/tdb909 return is under 3%? But this would be market timing and I need to stay away from that and follow our plan to 10% bond allocation in couch potato accounts.


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## Xoron

I did better than I had thought. (but the last trading day pop certainly helped).

I managed 10.75% XIRR on my combined TFSA and RRSP. I'll take it. It was a bit of a slog this year. Mainly stayed mostly invested, without having much cash on the sidelines. (maybe 5% cash)

My portfolio is 75% indexed, and 25% actively managed (by me).


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## slacker

Looks like the stock pickers beat the indexer's in 2012.


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## mrPPincer

slacker said:


> Looks like the stock pickers beat the indexer's in 2012.


always does
Looks like only one stock picker has given us numbers though, KaeJS, and he just finished buying his first home, so um.. not really a scientific survey yet.


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## Echo

My portfolio was up 12.16% for the year. Mostly Canadian dividend paying stocks:

Bank of Montreal
Bank of Nova Scotia
BCE Inc
CIBC
Canadian Oil Sands
Fortis
Great West Life
Liquor Stores Income Fund
Riocan Investment Trust
Rogers Sugar
Shaw Communications
SNC Lavalin
TELUS Corp
Transcanada Corp

My net worth was up 39% for the year - http://www.boomerandecho.com/net-worth-update-and-year-end-review/


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## Jon_Snow

A quick look at my holdings suggests that I am up about 12% for 2012. Fortunately there are more winners like Boston Pizza, Cedar Fair, Telus and XRE than there are losers - I'm lookin' at you PBN. :upset:

The more important fact for me is that my investable assets are approaching the 500k mark. Its always troubled me that my net worth was heavily weighted towards real estate, mortgage free though it is. Feeling better and better about our financial situation. It was a great year on a lot of levels for my wife and I... with that said....

Bring on 2013!!!!


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## doctrine

I had a fantastic year. I was growing my portfolio significantly all year long, and had some big hits - Autocanada was a home run at +150%, Chesswood, Alaris, and Boston Pizza were all 30%+, and my real estate companies (Killiam, First Capital) were a solid 20%+. Overall return, including dividends, was around 15%, and I'm still holding everything. My benchmark target is 5% capital growth + 5% dividends = 10%, so I'd be happy with no capital gains this year and just to sit back and collect my 5% dividends. I'm still working the total numbers for net worth etc, but investment returns may have comprised as much as 50% of my net worth gains this year including income.


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## Argonaut

The good news: Just calculated the XIRR of all of my holdings for 2012. It's a 23% return compared to a 31% return in 2011. I can't say I'm disappointed because I didn't trade much at all this year compared to last, and had no real home runs either. Only made one swap: Fortis for Bank of Nova Scotia. 5-pack with dividends, a couple good mining picks, and several option trades that probably weren't worth the time and stress. Had about 10-15% tied up in low return corporate bonds to boost margin maintenance.

The bad news: Net worth didn't increase all that much for a young guy like me this year. I wish I was as good at life management as I am at investing. I'm a Ramblin' Man in every sense of the word.

Goal for 2013: Setting the bar somewhat low at 10% return, and/or beating all applicable indexes.


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## Xoron

I just calculated my return on the kid's RESP. XIRR = 9.49% 

That's invested in E-Series funds:
30% CAD (TDB900 - TD Canadian Index - e)
30% US (TDB902 - TD US Index - e)
10% Bonds (TDB909 - TD Canadian Bond Index - e)
30% International (TDB911 - TD International Index - e)


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## namelessone

My 2012 return was measly 7.7% XIRR. It's 80% CAD stock + 10% US stock + 10 short term bond. 

My portfolio finally form a nice shape in 2012 after making some adjustments. Majority of it are solid profitable businesses that I intended to hold for years to come. One year return is meaningless. I'll expect it to out peform the indexer in the long term, e.g. 5+ years.


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## Easy Does It

Total Return of 50% for 2012 with 100% equities. 

New Years Resolution; Less BNN and reading financial papers discussing opinions about opinions and general fortune telling. 
Strategy for 2013; not changing anything, KISS. 


Regards,
EDI


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## marina628

I got the final numbers together and I made a respectable 19.6% mainly because of selling off many FTS stocks($30,000 capital gains to deal with in 2012 but I have RRSP room to offset) and i made crazy grpn trades at one time had $30,000 in that stock stuck for 5 weeks but thank god i got out with 14% profits .My stupidest move was AAPL that i bought at $380 then $408 and sold them all when it hit $430.i should have gotten greedy but i set my sell price at a 10.29% return (don't ask how i got to that lol). Anyway still watching GRPN ,FB and AAPL to gamble a bit with but mainly my plan for 2013 is to do a combo of Argo's 5 pack with the 5-10 stocks I already hold.I sold off some FTS (25% of my stock) because i wanted to spread things out a bit more.I have been a bit reserved about sharing what I buy and sell but my skin is a bit thicker now ,GRPN taught me lots in the past year or so and it is fun riding the roller coaster with you guys Happy 2013 everyone !


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## jamesbe

Without doing some complicated math I'm a little bit off but I averaged 17% in my account and 10% in my spouses account.

This doesn't include some dividends I pulled out to pay off some of my mortgage. Either way I'm happy and a little surprised as I thought my wife's account was doing better than mine...


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## Ihatetaxes

It was a good year. Investment portfolio was up 14% despite pulling some cash from non-registered accounts out to buy an investment property. Overall household net worth up 16.7% not including my business which had a record year.


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## jamesbe

Thanks for the reminder on the net worth. Glad I'm using mint, makes this so much easier.

Probably is the best way to figure out how things are going, 2012 was a good year, increasing my net worth by 17.6%


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## Young&Ambitious

18.5% realized return (capital gains, loss and dividends) net of interest costs. I am very happy with this as I truly started trading only in the summer when I got rid of the mutual funds for good and about half of my portfolio is of buy and hold stocks, I used leverage to boost my returns. On a XIRR basis I'd expect the return to be higher, but I'm content using realized annualized averages. As long as it's growing and beating the index or is close to I am happy.


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## blin10

interesting observation, almost everyone in this thread posting positive returns


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## Potato

22% this year, vs a 50/50 CDN/US index benchmark of TD e-series at 8.2% for out-performance of 13.8%. (last year -9.3% vs -3.9% for an under-performance of 5.4%).

All equities, 70% Canadian, 30% US, with ~30% of those in index funds (which acted as a drag this year, but were a help last year). The year-over-year differences were largely driven by swings in the same few stocks: SPB was a big loser last year, and a winner this year, etc. Plus I managed to avoid any major blow-ups this year.


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## doctrine

Contrary to the headlines, almost every major index in the world is up this year, some (like in Europe and the US) are up significantly above long term averages. It would be surprising if the average CMF user was losing money as well. 

It's also great not having to give back 2.5% of your portfolio in fees. As always, the long term average gain is 10% a year (7% real gain + inflation), so gains in the range of 10-20% are high, but certainly not unusual.


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## My Own Advisor

I hold a bunch of XIU, so that was about 8%. Own a bunch of VTI, that was up as was VWO; how much I'm not too concerned about. 

Worst performing stock was TA. Down about 30% but it's a small position and it will come back (I think?). In the meantime, I will continue to earn more shares every quarter via my DRIP.

Canadian REITs treated me very well, up over 20% on all three holdings. 2012 was a good bounce-back year.

Like jamesbe, I prefer to use increased NW as a measure of financial success along with increasing cash flow. In 2012, NW increased over 10% and dividend income increased by 20% over 2011. I hope 2013 can be more of the same.


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## eulogy

My XIRR finished the year at 15.2%. Pretty sweet. e-Series: 30% US Equities ($US), 25% Canadian Equities, 25% International Equities, 20% Canadian Bonds.


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## dogcom

Plus 28 percent because spidey started this thread. If spidey didn't start it I wouldn't say it here except to belguy in another thread because of his fear for trading and the reason is I don't want to brag about it.


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## Four Pillars

13.3%

http://www.moneysmartsblog.com/2012-investment-portfolio-returns-a-good-year/


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## Jungle

Good job Four Pillars. 

How come you only hold 11% cdn? usually US/CDN/INT is split into three?


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## Jungle

Eulogy those are great returns from e-series. 

Your 15.2 % is a lot higher than using TDB902. 

Was there anything else you did to get higher return? (lump sum, dca?)


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## daddybigbucks

25% return on my rrsp 
14% on kids RESP
197% on my TFSA (pretty much all due to ANS)

Great year for me, also considering my return was ~1% for 2011


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## Barwelle

I got +13% XIRR on my Couch Potato. (All equity: 40% Canada, 30% US, 30% Int'l.) I have weekly automatic purchases set up for TD e-Series, and add a little bit now and then for rebalancing or when markets take a dive. 

And +6% with some stock-picking "play money". Maybe I shouldn't be playing!? 

My net worth gain, however, is far more exciting... +137% :biggrin:


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## hboy43

Hi:

I had a stunningly good year, but so what? Investment returns are like a cylinder firing 3 or 4 times per rotation into a flywheel, not the uniform torque of a 3 phase induction motor. I had some mighty big explosions in one of my cylinders this year.

In 2011 the return looks something like -10%. So 2011 - 2012 looks like ... about average with other folks here.

Why do we trumpet a 1 year return from January 1 to December 31, seems kind of arbitrary? I don't know about anyone else's results, but not much of what I did in 2012 had any bearing on 2012's return. Investing is a much longer game. The more important thing I can report today is that no stock buy or sell made in 2012 made me (or lost me) any significant money THIS year. The money made this year was a result of things done in years past. 

Perhaps the big winner in 5 years time will be one of this year's buys.

hboy43


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## Homerhomer

I must be CMF looser of the year, just calculated my return and it's -0.62%, not good to say the least.
Couple of my large long term holdings like MCD had bad year, made few stupid purchases like TA, enough to offset other gains, held large cash position throught the year which is not good in up market, and as a whole was quite inactive this year. Last few yeas were very good for me outperforming the markets, not this year.


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## HaroldCrump

hboy43 said:


> Why do we trumpet a 1 year return from January 1 to December 31, seems kind of arbitrary? I don't know about anyone else's results, but not much of what I did in 2012 had any bearing on 2012's return. Investing is a much longer game. The more important thing I can report today is that no stock buy or sell made in 2012 made me (or lost me) any significant money THIS year. The money made this year was a result of things done in years past.


A big :encouragement: to this attitude and approach.
Long term thinking and acting is a big part of investing.

I esp. like the statement that many of the gains in 2012 had nothing to do with decisions made in 2012.


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## indexxx

Well, this was my first full year of actively investing- I was a mutual funder prior to mid 2011. I feel did fairly well overall aside from a couple of dumb moves but those I am fine with as the learning experience is invaluable. Up about 15% overall. Some big gainers for me this year were EGHT, APL, AUTH, AAPL, and DDD.


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## Eder

My stuff is so disorganized that I doubt I will know how the year went till March when my accountant (hopefully) gives me the good news. I beat the S&P handily with my stock portfolio so I feel like a hero there at least! After taxes and capital gains there will be less reason for euphoria.


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## dubmac

Most of my returns were in the 6-9% range - and I am happy with that.
One account (the bigger one) averaged 6.4% with a 30% stocks, etfs, 45% GIC ladder, 25% bond funds. This is a conservative mix - preserving capital, reinvesting the income are priorities. Last year it earned around 1%. This year I plan to move to a 40% equities mix - and look to buy some US etf's (VUS, VIG, VXUS?) - if any input/suggestions on good dividend etf's please let me know.

My DC Pension earned 7%. Most RRSP's in the 6-8% range. TFSA's (all stocks) were 8-9% - thanks to BCE, RY, SU, and no thanks to ECA, COS, MF.
All in, I'm content. My plan called for 6% in my conservative stuff to make financial independence doable in 10 years.

I learned a thing er two this year. I made a stoopid error and sold a portion of my SLF on the way down, repurchased some at 24. Moral of the story: don't panic in times of market mayhem.

On a separate note: Just rec'd my 2013 home assessment (I live in Vancouver) - our home assessment was down 10%! Not a big surprise given the recent changes.


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## Toronto.gal

HaroldCrump said:


> I esp. like the statement that many of the gains in 2012 had nothing to do with decisions made in 2012.


Sure, not every year, but many of my best decisions in 2012, did indeed give me my good results, while other decisions will have no consequence until later years.

What is also not to be underestimated, is the impact that short-term goals/returns have on the longer ones. 

Depending on account, got double & triple digit returns, but I know Belguy + many others would never believe anything I say, as they see me as a mere hyper/thoughtless gambler.

Congrats to all that did well.

*Homerhomer:* your big year could be 2013! :encouragement:


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## ddkay

I did relatively little buying last year, my biggest gains were thanks to 'all-in' NBD and LGF swing trades. Had a little BIP and MIC for divvys and CCJ for spec. Almost flat on gold, flat Apple. All cash and watching and waiting for something else now. I was bearish last year and I'm still pretty bearish for 2013, but if the trend continues up I guess I have to live with that. I try to pad my positions in case one day the trap door opens.

BAC is almost at $14, go Warren!!


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## eulogy

Jungle said:


> Eulogy those are great returns from e-series.
> 
> Your 15.2 % is a lot higher than using TDB902.
> 
> Was there anything else you did to get higher return? (lump sum, dca?)


Well, I held a much larger amount of US at the first of the year. It slowly progressed down to targets by the end of the year. I also hold TDB952 (so $US version) instead of TDB902. I was pretty surprised by it. 

I lumped some money in at the first of the year, and dollar cost averaged (somewhat) up until September. Than my TFSA and RRSP were maxed, so I stopped. 

I think I just got lucky with just the timing of buys and lump sums. The plan this year is dollar cost average to the truest sense of the definition. Even though lump summing worked nicely this year, in 2011 I lumped in a lot (when I first started investing) and it all went in at the high point.


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## Cal

hboy43 said:


> The money made this year was a result of things done in years past.


Yep. Best to make a good plan and stick with it.

I don't really worry about any annualized gains/losses (although I was up-being a dividend investor. most of you can figure out my returns give or take), but I do annually track what my investments annual income provided to me is/would be for when I decide to retire.


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## daddybigbucks

HaroldCrump said:


> A big :encouragement: to this attitude and approach.
> Long term thinking and acting is a big part of investing.
> 
> I esp. like the statement that many of the gains in 2012 had nothing to do with decisions made in 2012.


I am surprised at these statements. 
Sure the % return is a lot o' ego but I feel it is an very important benchmark.
With me making about 1% return 2011, that definitely made me re-assess my portfolio and sold off almost all my non-dividend payers to get at least higher % return in dividends.
It was lucky that a lot of investors thought the same way and the price on these blue chip dividend payers went up accordingly.
This is in drastic contrast to my best friend who still held on to dozens of Venture stock companies, thinking there would be another boom like their was in 2011.


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## HaroldCrump

daddybigbucks said:


> I am surprised at these statements.
> Sure the % return is a lot o' ego but I feel it is an very important benchmark.


I didn't say they were not an important benchmark (they are).
However, my point (and I think hboy's as well, although I won't speak on his behalf) is that last year's returns do not ncecessarily co-relate with investment decisions made last year.
Some decisions may have been made the year before, or several years before.
Also, some decisions made last year may not have borne fruit yet, and possibly might be down a lot (and dragging down your returns).

In hboy's example, it was NBD, which dragged down his returns in the past but finally yielded good results this year.

Essentially, 2012 returns may not reflect your true performance (i.e. sound decision making) for 2012.

Secondly, last year's return create the "mutual fund effect" wherein some funds pump double digit returns for last year, but if you look at 5 or 10 year returns, all of a sudden, they don't appear as rosy.


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## Spidey

I agree returns are pretty arbitrary and mine vary wildly depending on which 12 month period I use during the year. But I think it is a useful exercise to make an annual comparison against some benchmark (the Canadian standard would be the FPX indexes) just to make sure that your investing style, or perhaps even more importantly that of your adviser, is making sense. One underperforming year may not be significant, but if every single year your portfolio significantly under-performs a benchmark based on the most appropriate indexes for your portfolio mix, then maybe it would be time to analyze the strategy being used. 

By the way, according to a posting from a similar thread on the Financial Webring site the FPX indexes are:

FPX Growth +8.170
FPX Balanced +6.397
FPX Income +4.175

(I would suggest Google if you are curious about the asset mix of the FPX indexes.)

Most mutual funds in these categories would have performed significantly worse than these indexes. 

I also wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into comparisons to other members (for various reasons) but rather use the FPX benchmarks as a more practical yardstick.


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## Jungle

What FPX number would be near 100% equity?


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## Spidey

Jungle said:


> What FPX number would be near 100% equity?



FPX growth is 70% equity (balance of Canadian and international). Any more than that, or if more country specific, I would just compare to the most appropriate ETF (s).


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## Jungle

100% equity for e-series TDB902, TDB900 and TDB911 is 11.62%
TDB902 also has a lower return than s&p500, because CAD was up almost 3% on the year. This can also go the other way, if CAD drops this year. 

I underperformed this by 0.60%.


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## Spidey

Jungle said:


> 100% equity for e-series TDB902, TDB900 and TDB911 is 11.62%
> TDB902 also has a lower return than s&p500, because CAD was up almost 3% on the year. This can also go the other way, if CAD drops this year.
> 
> I underperformed this by 0.60%.


Passive portfolios will almost always slightly underperform actual indexes because of frictional costs. You are already using a strategy very similar to the FPX concept, so you are basically comparing to a slightly less aggressive version of your own strategy with the FPX growth. FWIW, I think your strategy is a good one for a person who does not need ready access to their cash in the near future (within 15-20 years) and who can live with potential volatility.

I would probably consider something similar if I was younger.


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## Jungle

Thanks Spidey. 

I rebalanced now to 15% bonds, because I can see that taking on more risk does not always mean you will get a higher, long term return. Only problem is stock portfolio is 100% equity, in a non-reg. So tax on bonds would be brutal. 

They do help to smooth out bad years and keep a steadier, long term return rate. For example, last year and the great crash of 08. What's even better is you can rebalance with them when equity is down. 

This is hard to accept, because of everyone and the media telling us bonds will die. Since I can't perdict the future, I decided it was time to get a proper balance and forget about it. 

Although 15% is not much, I will rebalance 2% more bonds each year.


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## Jungle

BTW here is the XIRR returns for the most common TD Eseries funds. This DOES include distributions, but NOT reinvested (too much work to figure out) :

TDB902 12.63% 
TDB911 15.40%
TDB900 6.83%
TDB909 3.06% 

TD's website is rounding returns to 1 decimal point and they are also posting the wrong return for TDB902. They are saying it's 10.9%. I think they forgot the distribution.

Dollar was up about 2.88% for the year.


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## Franky Jr

Jungle said:


> BTW here is the XIRR returns for the most common TD Eseries funds. This DOES include distributions, but NOT reinvested (too much work to figure out) :
> 
> TDB902 12.63%
> TDB911 15.40%
> TDB900 6.83%
> TDB909 3.06%
> 
> TD's website is rounding returns to 1 decimal point and they are also posting the wrong return for TDB902. They are saying it's 10.9%. I think they forgot the distribution.
> 
> Dollar was up about 2.88% for the year.


+1 / I concur with your numbers. That's what I pulled off globeinvestor, they include distributions in their numbers.

my years XIRR 8.1% ~= FPX growth


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## 1.5M

overall 18.56%.
- rrsp 12.8% (covered calls in IWM)
- tfsa 45.4% (only triple-financials, FAS with some covered calls) 
- non-reg 21.2% (mostly strategies with VIX options)


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## Dmoney

20.9% in CAD unregistered
17.1% in USD unregistered
5.7% in CAD TFSA


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## PharmD

My roughly 80% equity mutual fund portfolio with Steadyhand had a return of 12.3%. Sometimes it's not so bad on the dark side, although it was good pretty much everywhere in 2012. Here's hoping for another good year.


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## hboy43

Toronto.gal said:


> Sure, not every year, but many of my best decisions in 2012, did indeed give me my good results, while other decisions will have no consequence until later years.
> 
> What is also not to be underestimated, is the impact that short-term goals/returns have on the longer ones.
> 
> Depending on account, got double & triple digit returns, but I know Belguy + many others would never believe anything I say, as they see me as a mere hyper/thoughtless gambler.


I take your statements as truthful and am quite happy to concede that what you do well makes you a good return.

What I take issue with is taking a trade that made you 3 digit return in under 1 year and making that part of an "investment return". I see it as a luck or speculation return an the title of this thread is "... Investment Returns ...". I mean if we take what you do (on these trades, I understand that your philosophy wrt to your long term holds is quite aligned with mine) and call it investing, then might as well call in here a lottery winner and declare that they had the best annual return of all of us. Anyhow, maybe you have a counterargument, and I would be happy to consider it. Perhaps you could break out your returns to provide more details, say x% of my money is invested and made a% in 2012. My gambling or speculation money is y% of my funds and made b%returns, although I realize this may not be feasible. An estimation works for me as that is all I ever supply.

Here is another comment, not directed at you as many people here do same. Why do so many people split their money out into "accounts" and then give each account a return figure (I refer to investing here as per the discussion above, if part of what you do is speculating, then fair ball in splitting it out)? As far as I am concerned, our money is our money and there is no speculation component. It makes no difference (other than taxation issues) which of the handful of accounts did well and which didn't, I just report a family total. To do otherwise might look as stroking the ego on accounts that did well, and never mind the ones that didn't. Or worse, one is lying to oneself about how well they are doing.

hboy43


----------



## Sampson

hboy43 said:


> As far as I am concerned, our money is our money and there is no speculation component. It makes no difference (other than taxation issues) which of the handful of accounts did well and which didn't


I think this applies to long term investments vs. speculative investments also. The question is whether TGal can do it over her entire investing career. If so, then her elevated returns are warranted.

Really, for anyone owning real estate as investment (not residence), that should be included in their annual returns also. If you have a rental unit that didn't change in price, and had a cap rate of 5%, then that should be in included. And I'm guessing for most, since the nominal value of real estate is so high, that would be a severe drag on total investment returns. No one seems to include those here, just there two digit positive figures.


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## humble_pie

hboy you do raise some valuable points but i see direct conflict between your views set forth in paragraph 2 & your views set forth in paragraph 3.

in para 2 you call for "speculative returns" to be split off & segregated, because they should never be considered part of investment returns, according to yourself.

in para 3 however you call for an aggregate net worth return as being the only reportable figure of merit. Net worth would, of course, include the product of all trading gains or losses.

personally i learn towards the net worth approach, although for each individual the choice has to be different. Net worth works for me because i have many active trading accounts but only one house plus trust interest in a shared property (i exclude everything except real estate from net worth calcs.)

going back to your concept of excluding vs including speculative trading returns from annual investment returns figs, i would say that every gain or loss from every exchange-traded vehicle should be included, as well as dividends & distributions from the same, regardless of whether a particular forum member might quibble with such gains as speculative each:

under net worth reporting, figures from privately-traded assets such as real estate, certain hedge funds & partnerships will always be subject to individual accounting approaches, of course.


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## Xoron

hboy43 said:


> What I take issue with is taking a trade that made you 3 digit return in under 1 year and making that part of an "investment return". I see it as a luck or speculation return an the title of this thread is "... Investment Returns ...". I mean if we take what you do (on these trades, I understand that your philosophy wrt to your long term holds is quite aligned with mine) and call it investing, then might as well call in here a lottery winner and declare that they had the best annual return of all of us.


hboy43, I've had a few stocks triple over over the years, and I'd still consider it an investment. My strategy was to purchase a basket of stocks that met specific criteria. Some went up (I've only had a few 100%+ gains) and some went down (a few drop to 50% of the purchase price). Was I gambling? No, these buys were part of a bigger investment strategy.

And some investors (and this isn't directed at T.Gal) like to only talk of the winners and ignore the losers. This is why an overall return is the only metric that counts. 

So what if 1 of my stocks went up 500% and made up only 1% of my overall portfolio. It may be completely dwarfed by the 5 stocks that were down only 10%, but make up 50% of my portfolio.


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## Jungle

I strongly agree with HBOY, I am seeing certain things being left out of portfolios (like the fixed income portion? ) you are really cheating yourself. Also, (not saying on this forum), but your best stock pick does not count as your entire portfolio. 

Also with rental, tax season starts in a couple months in order to get the proper numbers, since there are so many write offs against the income. 
I've done an estimate this year (but it's just an estimate, not accurate). I won't know my profit nubmers until my taxes are done.


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## valueindexer

hboy43 said:


> Here is another comment, not directed at you as many people here do same. Why do so many people split their money out into "accounts" and then give each account a return figure (I refer to investing here as per the discussion above, if part of what you do is speculating, then fair ball in splitting it out)? As far as I am concerned, our money is our money and there is no speculation component. It makes no difference (other than taxation issues) which of the handful of accounts did well and which didn't, I just report a family total. To do otherwise might look as stroking the ego on accounts that did well, and never mind the ones that didn't. Or worse, one is lying to oneself about how well they are doing.


But you just don't understand! My $100 account that got a 500% return wouldn't look nearly as good when combined with the $100,000 account that lost 5%! Ok, I didn't really get a 500% return last year. My best call of the year was worth 9,555% and I put exactly $0 into it. That's got to be worth something right?



Jungle said:


> BTW here is the XIRR returns for the most common TD Eseries funds. This DOES include distributions, but NOT reinvested (too much work to figure out) :
> 
> TDB902 12.63%
> TDB911 15.40%
> TDB900 6.83%
> TDB909 3.06%
> 
> TD's website is rounding returns to 1 decimal point and they are also posting the wrong return for TDB902. They are saying it's 10.9%. I think they forgot the distribution.
> 
> Dollar was up about 2.88% for the year.


I just look at the performance reported on the TD website - you have to get it on the right day, but isn't that including reinvested distributions?


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## Toronto.gal

Sampson said:


> 1. I think this applies to long term investments vs. speculative investments also.
> 2. The question is whether TGal can do it over her entire investing career.


*1.* In my case though, except for my biotech stocks & the odd tech stock like NOK/RIM, and odd jr. oil/gold exploration companies, most of the stocks that I trade, are same as the ones I hold long-term, hence *not *speculative in the strict definition of the word, ie: they do not carry a large risk to invest in IMHO, otherwise I would not be holding them long-term. However, given the volatility, I have made $$$$ trading stocks, so how is that ever going to fail me over my 'entire investing career'? I ask this because the reason why this comment is made, is because I'm an active trader, and not a couch potato, LOL. 

As for the most relaxed definition of speculation, that of having an opinion/conclusion, etc, every investor does exactly that, with respect to investment selection/price [whether short or long-term], etc. Example, many would not touch MFC for whatever reason, wasn't this a form of [negative] speculation? I, on the other hand, jumped in every single time the stock fell to the ground, hence I was also speculating.

*2.* I'm not really sure what you guys mean by that; it's almost as though you're saying that I'm succeeding now [assuming you believe anything I ever write, lol], but that eventually my portfolio will collapse. If I bought a stock in 09, and won't be selling until 20+ years later, how will I fail, short of the stock going bankrupt? :confused2:

I'm currently in the accumulation phase and that is my goal. As an example, I have invested X amount in RY, and accordingly, have reached my goals with the stock - I define goal as: i) desired # of shares and ii) desired capital/cost reduction. The latter I achieve via dividends and via trading profits.

So far, I have reached my goal with a few of my 20+ stocks, so exactly how is it that I might not do well over the long run? 

Also, to be honest, and I'm sure many of you will think that I'm crazy, I'm *not* interested in beating any index, but my own! 

Anyhow, do not worry about me, as I'm confident I'll be just fine 20+ years from now, so no need to use me as a comparative example in your conversations, lol. :tongue-new: 

I'm pretty sure that my obsession with single-digit stocks [not penny stocks], you know the ones that you [in general] & even institutions have shunned, like MFC [as OptsyEagle correctly pointed out in the thread 'MFC - buy or wait'], will reward me [and him] nicely in the future.

And of course, for the more 'creative investors' [aka gamblers as per c.potatoes], there is always joy in discovering the little unknown stocks as well, but definitely don't recommend this to any couch potato. :tongue-new:


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## dogcom

How about we call you the AntiBelguy T.gal.


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## humble_pie

t.gal you can see it's a hopeless cause. *They* are always going to find fault with somebody else's trading pattern.

here we have hboy discriminating against some of t.gal's results & suggesting they're casino-like because he wants to cast a negative light on short-term trading. Seems hboy believes that identical buys & sells are OK when made on a long-term basis. In a subtle way he seems to be saying Ah You Are Good But My Way is Even Better.

i think it's self-evident that *all* returns from exchange-traded vehicles are to be included in calculations regardless of the holding time frame.


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## Toronto.gal

hboy43 said:


> 1. I take your statements as *truthful*
> 2. What I take issue with is taking a trade that made you *3 digit return in under 1 year....*
> 3. *I see it as a luck or speculation return *an the title of this thread is "... Investment Returns.


*1.* You know what, I hesitated to enter this thread, as I knew what some would say/think, and honestly, I posted simply to let certain folks see what is possible to achieve & not to impress anyone. 

This is a forum full of strangers [except for 2 people that I know in person and are my friends], so I really do not care what people believe, though I appreciate your comment above and I believe you as well!

*2.* If for example, you tripled an account balance, what does it matter if it was achieved over a short period of time or not? As I mentioned several times, I use TFSA as a trading vehicle, and for the obvious tax-free advantage. My goal in said account is simply to grow the balance as quickly as possible, then I can be passive with 1/2 the amount, ie: letting dividends do their work, and continue to grow it with the other 1/2. So, are you saying that I should only talk about what the passive portion of the account is doing? 

*3.* Ok., have it your way, making huge unrealized & realized short-term profits on ANS/BAC/NOK/RIM, etc., etc., and as a result of having recognized the upside potential [after picking them from the ground and not from all time highs] = nothing but 'luck/speculation return', and not 'Investing Returns' or any other investing skill. Silly me, I better check the definition of the latter again.:rolleyes2:

*A.* Yesterday, I had 2 lottery winners; made near $2K trading stocks that I picked up earlier this week, after they fell considerably due to certain negative news in same week. Better now? Does that fit your definition of 'luck returns'?

Were they stocks that I hold long-term as well? YES! What stocks were they? EGO/NOK. Returns/profits that are going to be reinvested in same or other stocks? YES! 

*B.* Today, I traded stocks that I purchased late yesterday afternoon; GTE/TLM, and sold this morning for a moderate profit. Were they stocks that I hold long-term as well? YES. Profits that are going to be reinvested in same or other stocks? Already have done so with the former as after I sold, it dropped to my purchase price of yesterday.

I know this is not a trading topic thread, but my point with A & B above, is that what I do with my trades, will affect my 'Investment Returns' at the end of the year.  But you are saying that it does not count.

It's a losing battle here, I'm OUT!


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## Homerhomer

This is laughable, a simply thread about previous year results turning into another investment styles bickering.

Another funny thing is how investors don't even know how to calculate their results, the best one was the guy showing some gains in percentage and losses in dollar amounts, and then saying he can't calculate the returns on open short positions.

I guess unrealized losses on long positions should be excluded then, heck I won't know how much I made until I sell them ;-)


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## Jungle

valueindexer said:


> But you just don't understand! My $100 account that got a 500% return wouldn't look nearly as good when combined with the $100,000 account that lost 5%! Ok, I didn't really get a 500% return last year. My best call of the year was worth 9,555% and I put exactly $0 into it. That's got to be worth something right?
> 
> 
> 
> I just look at the performance reported on the TD website - you have to get it on the right day, but isn't that including reinvested distributions?


Yes, their returns are supposed to include distributions. Also, you can get the returns on any day, just click performance tab, look at 1 year. 

But have a look at TDB902- for some reason TD did NOT include the distribution? They've made a mistake. My XIRR in the post above shows the total return- 12.63% (not 10.9%)


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## Toronto.gal

humble_pie said:


> t.gal you can see it's a hopeless cause. *They* are always going to find fault with somebody else's trading pattern.
> 
> here we have hboy discriminating against some of t.gal's results & suggesting they're casino-like because he wants to cast a negative light on short-term trading. Seems hboy believes that identical buys & sells are OK when made on a long-term basis. In a subtle way he seems to be saying Ah You Are Good But My Way is Even Better.
> 
> i think it's self-evident that *all* returns from exchange-traded vehicles are to be included in calculations regardless of the holding time frame.


I only read this after I wrote my last post, so just came back to acknowledge your post.

I came to the conclusion that people who learn nothing from what we are trying to teach so patiently, but just find faults and are critical of us, are nothing but jealous, so it's impossible to argue with such folks.

It's clear who are the members here, who are truly contributing & trying to open the minds of investors, thank God for those! :encouragement:

Imagine how boring this forum would be, with just the likes who preach that all you need is 15/30 minutes a year to invest your hard earned $'s. :rolleyes2:

Or with those that simply use the forum for their benefit, but never, ever help others in any way. :hopelessness:


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## HaroldCrump

Homerhomer said:


> the best one was the guy showing some gains in percentage and losses in dollar amounts, and then saying he can't calculate the returns on open short positions.


No, the _best_ was the guy who simply added up all the % numbers to claim he had a 500% gain in one year.
His true gain was something like 3 or 4%, at best.
It was an old post.
I will try to find it. The guy was hilarious.


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## Toronto.gal

Homerhomer said:


> 1. This is laughable, a simply thread about previous year results turning into another investment styles bickering.
> 2. I guess unrealized losses on long positions should be excluded then, heck I won't know how much I made until I sell them ;-)


1. Note that I did not start it [never do in fact]; all I said was that short-term returns should not be underestimated, that was all.
2. LOL. :biggrin-new:

Thanks for the good laff.


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## humble_pie

(i) (always) (include) (short) (positions)


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## humble_pie

i especially fancy the option traders who include the gains they *might* make *if* their options get assigned

from now on i think everybody should use gains to estimated target selling price as real gains in their calcs


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## HaroldCrump

HaroldCrump said:


> No, the _best_ was the guy who simply added up all the % numbers to claim he had a 500% gain in one year.
> His true gain was something like 3 or 4%, at best.
> It was an old post.
> I will try to find it. The guy was hilarious.


Here is the post I was thinking of:

http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php/6083-YouTube-Stock-Trading-D-Bag

He calls himself Stock Trading Master.

The YouTube video is still there, I just checked.

KaeJS, are you still "friends" with this brilliant gentleman?
He seems to be talking a lot about you...your ears must be ringing.


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## Homerhomer

HaroldCrump said:


> No, the _best_ was the guy who simply added up all the % numbers to claim he had a 500% gain in one year.
> His true gain was something like 3 or 4%, at best.
> It was an old post.
> I will try to find it. The guy was hilarious.


Fair enough, I was only referring to posts in this thread, I am sure there are other gems I have missed. :encouragement:


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## Homerhomer

Toronto.gal said:


> I came to the conclusion that people who learn nothing from what we are trying to teach so patiently, but just find faults and are critical of us, are nothing but jealous, so it's impossible to argue with such folks.
> :


Then why argue it, it's impossible so let go, what's the point of trying to convince others that there are other options and one glove doesn't fit all. There is nothing to gain from arguing the impossible.:tongue-new:


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## Toronto.gal

Homerhomer said:


> Then why argue it


I was *not* arguing, but responding. 

I typically don't ignore people who address me directly, in case you haven't noticed. But from now on, I will do just that when their only point is to 'argue'. :rolleyes2:


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## Argonaut

Hey T-Dot-G, I'd love to see an in depth recap of your year. The long list of winning trades and strategies, and the losers and lessons learned. Like what about Petrobras, which I once dubbed "the worst stock in all of Brazil". Or what about some Bio picks for this year. I sense some reluctance to get too detailed though, and that is fine.


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## humble_pie

Argonaut said:


> Hey ... I'd love to see an in depth recap of your year


cheeky boy


----------



## Four Pillars

hboy43 said:


> What I take issue with is taking a trade that made you 3 digit return in under 1 year and making that part of an "investment return". I see it as a luck or speculation return an the title of this thread is "... Investment Returns ...". I mean if we take what you do (on these trades, I understand that your philosophy wrt to your long term holds is quite aligned with mine) and call it investing, then might as well call in here a lottery winner and declare that they had the best annual return of all of us. Anyhow, maybe you have a counterargument, and I would be happy to consider it.


You are trying to redefine the word 'investment' to match your own perspective.

Investment return or performance is the measurement of how much your investments went up or down. It doesn't matter what style or method is used. 




hboy43 said:


> Here is another comment, not directed at you as many people here do same. Why do so many people split their money out into "accounts" and then give each account a return figure (I refer to investing here as per the discussion above, if part of what you do is speculating, then fair ball in splitting it out)? As far as I am concerned, our money is our money and there is no speculation component. It makes no difference (other than taxation issues) which of the handful of accounts did well and which didn't, I just report a family total. To do otherwise might look as stroking the ego on accounts that did well, and never mind the ones that didn't. Or worse, one is lying to oneself about how well they are doing.
> hboy43


Agreed. They also don't include the weightings so if their $8,000 TFSA gets 20% and the $500,000 RRSP gets 2%, their total portfolio return is pretty darn close to 2%.


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## Jungle

To make this productive, how would one properly measure their total return when they have frequent trades and long positions? Like Toronto.gal I assume.


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## Toronto.gal

Argonaut said:


> Hey T-Dot-G, I'd love to see an in depth recap of your year. The long list of winning trades and strategies, and the losers and lessons learned. Like what about Petrobras, which I once dubbed "the worst stock in all of Brazil". Or what about some Bio picks for this year. I sense some reluctance to get too detailed though, and that is fine.


Considering you hardly ever debate/comment/contradict/support anything I ever write, dream on 'cheeky' boy!


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## marina628

The way I figured mine out is to look at value Jan 1 2012 + my cash into accounts in 2012 then jan 1 value and worked the % it increased.I didn't have time to look at all the transactions but we all remember the good ones and the bad ones.
As for Real Estate Returns there are many ways to calculate that number ,If i stick to the ROI based on Original Purchase price we got 5% net profit after tax consideration.If I look at fact one house sold in 2012 for 32% more than we paid for it in Jan 2010 that would change things.I rather be conservative on the books with the appreciation of my real estate portfolio so generally still have the values as what I paid for them unless we do sell.Thanks again for sharing everyone , I am always learning something new every day here.


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## dogcom

T.Gal sorry for my AntiBelguy comment because I don't use smiley faces it may not have gone over right.

Anyway who really cares what one makes. I find posting through the year as you buy and make trades as T.Gal and some have done here makes you accountable for good and bad trades or investments. We can go back to old posts and see the mistakes or winners made with a date attached to it. We can argue trading and long term investing on another thread. T.Gal is also right we need to talk about trading and all that stuff because if we just talk about the couch potato and long term investing the forum would get very boring.


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## Four Pillars

Jungle said:


> To make this productive, how would one properly measure their total return when they have frequent trades and long positions? Like Toronto.gal I assume.


Trades/long position don't matter. The important thing to understand is that performance return applies to a portfolio of money which includes any securities, cash or whatever. 

So for example if you have an RRSP with $100,000 in it on Jan 1 and at the end of the year it goes up to $110,000 and you haven't added or subtracted any funds from the account - the return should be 10%. If you have contributions or withdrawals, they should be considered using the XIRR function or do what I do and just estimate by removing the net contributions from the total gain before calculating the return.

The initial and final values are the market value of everything in the account (including cash). It doesn't matter if you are going to hold your XYZ stock forever or if you think RIM will rebound - whatever the market value is on the end point days is the number you use.

Where things can get messed up is when someone has a trading account where they make large contributions and withdrawals relative to the account value. So if someone starts the year with $0, adds $10,000 in June, buys some stock, sells in September for $15,000 and then withdraws it all, they will have a meaningless return regardless of their method of calculation.


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## Jungle

Thanks for the explanation. 

I completed my 2010 returns, although very painful collecting data from back then (using irr and XIRR)

We have a three year CAGR of 6.76%. This is the entire stock+ mutual fund potfolios. 

I look forward to calculating returns in the future, now that I track everything using XIRR>


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## Eclectic12

hboy43 said:


> ...What I take issue with is taking a trade that made you 3 digit return in under 1 year and making that part of an "investment return". I see it as a luck or speculation return ...


Hmmm ... so with this way of thinking applied to the opposite situation, I should exclude my 99.8% loss trade as it was my "bad luck" or my "not enough coffee yet in the day" return?

By definition - the investment return is about the money paid, not if it was a crazy risk, calculated risk or two decades in the making, blue chip risk with two trades involved.




hboy43 said:


> ... I mean if we take what you do (...) and call it investing, then might as well call in here a lottery winner and declare that they had the best annual return of all of us...


Why? What makes it the same as a lottery?




hboy43 said:


> ...Why do so many people split their money out into "accounts" and then give each account a return figure ....It makes no difference (other than taxation issues) which of the handful of accounts did well and which didn't, I just report a family total...To do otherwise might look as stroking the ego on accounts that did well, and never mind the ones that didn't. Or worse, one is lying to oneself about how well they are doing.


Most of the posts I've seen have been by taxable, TFSA and RRSP. Since the brokers provide separate numbers for each, it is an easy way to report. While I doubt the poster is being mislead - they are seeing the total amounts, after all. The readers can be mislead. 

Consider someone who reports 8% gain in a taxable, 6% gain in TFSA and 14% gain in RRSP. It sounds relatively balanced. 

If there was $8K in the taxable, $10K in the TFSA and $345K in the RRSP - the situation changes, n'est pas?
Or if there was $25K in the taxable, $90K in the TFSA and $7K in the RRSP, it is different again.


I'll have to check for posts that include a "speculation" type account.


Cheers


----------



## CanadianCapitalist

Jungle said:


> To make this productive, how would one properly measure their total return when they have frequent trades and long positions? Like Toronto.gal I assume.


I use Excel's XIRR function. It's pretty simple. Make 2 columns. Dates in first column. Amounts contributed or withdrawn from an account in the second column. Ignore any trading, dividend payments etc. within the account. In the first row, enter the value of the account on a start date. Then enter all your contributions and withdrawals in the next rows. Withdrawals should have a negative sign. Last row, enter the value of the account on an end date with a negative sign. Use =XIRR(values, dates) to calculate your rate of return.

Here's an example for a hypothetical TFSA account:


1/1/201215000Opening value1/17/20125000Contribution for 20123/31/2012-800Withdrawal 16/30/2012-800Withdrawal 212/31/2012-25800End value

=XIRR(B1:B5,A1:A5) will calculate the TFSA portfolio rate of return. In this example, it is 39%.


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## dogcom

Thats how I calculated my return by taking the total of my account or accounts from the close on Dec. 31 to the close on Dec.31 the next year minus what I added through the year. This is what is important to me no matter how much I trade, hold or whatever I do. I then apply this to the longer term so if one year I make 100 percent for example and the next I lose 50 percent then I am not happy and the 100 percent gain turned out as something I wouldn't want to brag about. 

My gains this past year were good and a few years ago they were small. Next year I could lose 30 percent and I wish I never posted what I made here last year. If I can come here every year with good gains say over 5 years or more then I would be pleased.


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## Argonaut

Toronto.gal said:


> Considering you hardly ever debate/comment/contradict/support anything I ever write, dream on 'cheeky' boy!


LOL. Perhaps this year I'll comment on your every post with happy faces, and subtly propose marriage. That should do the trick. Kidding, I know he means well.

Apologies for the lack of contribution, though I do not have much to offer in the swing trading department. This is why I seek to learn, yes? Best of luck in 2013!

Signed,
Mr. Cheeky


----------



## jcgd

Four Pillars said:


> ...or do what I do and just estimate by removing the net contributions from the total gain before calculating the return.


This return would be a useless number unless you also removed any gains/ or losses that were attributed to the contributions. If your total gain is positive and you remove the contributions you juice your return. If you leave it in there you "hurt" your return. XIRR is the way to go if you actually care what your return was.


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## mrPPincer

jcgd said:


> If your total gain is positive and you remove the contributions you juice your return. If you leave it in there you "hurt" your return. XIRR is the way to go if you actually care what your return was.


I'd never heard of XIRR until this year but I fully agree with everyone who's implied that returns calculated without using the xirr function are meaningless here for comparison purposes.
It's like apples and oranges comparisons otherwise if everyone uses a different criteria.

Tonight I've just finished downloading OpenOffice 3.4.1 and I've figured out how to use the xirr function.
I'll plug in the numbers this weekend and update my guesstimated returns upthread.


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## mrPPincer

For anyone who doesn't have Excel, OpenOffice is a free, open source alternative, and considered superior by many.
Here's a link
http://www.openoffice.org/


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## jcgd

Thanks for the link. The only reason I haven't calculated my return is because I don't have Excel.


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## mrPPincer

No problem 
If you're as inexperienced at using these spreadsheet programs as I am, I'd suggest clicking on the help tab and typing in 'XIRR'; pretty straightforward from there.


----------



## Sampson

Toronto.gal said:


> I have made $$$$ trading stocks, so how is that ever going to fail me over my 'entire investing career'? I ask this because the reason why this comment is made, is because I'm an active trader, and not a couch potato, LOL.


I'm not being critical about you at all. You should include all your investing activities into your annual returns.

What I took away from hboy's post was that he viewed the 'trading' as outliers that should not be included into the overall return, since they are outliers. I hope you have continued success, whether you do or not, those returns definitely should factor into your annual numbers.

How else will we know who pisses the furthest? :rolleyes2:


----------



## mrPPincer

Sampson said:


> those returns definitely should factor into your annual numbers.
> 
> How else will we know who pisses the furthest? :rolleyes2:


I don't see it as a pissing contest at all
I see it as valuable criteria to help assess the effectiveness of differing stategies over the given time period, which is interesting to me.


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## Sampson

The problem is, few people post their entire playbook. Without that, we can only speculate at what % of TGal's (sorry to use you as an example) portfolio is used in the active trades.

I allude to this in my earlier comment regarding real estate. Who cares if your stock trading portfolio worth $20,000 returned 30%, when your real estate assets worth $500,000 returned 0.5%?

Posting a single annual portfolio return is not enough information to help one adopt a new strategy. In fact it could be dangerous. What if someone reading sees a couch potato investor has a return of 12% over the year. Is this figure due to the timing of the purchase? or because the underlying asset had a good year?


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## Four Pillars

jcgd said:


> This return would be a useless number unless you also removed any gains/ or losses that were attributed to the contributions. If your total gain is positive and you remove the contributions you juice your return. If you leave it in there you "hurt" your return. XIRR is the way to go if you actually care what your return was.


No, actually it isn't useless at all. If the amount of contributions is a small percentage of your portfolio (which is the case for me), then the error from leaving in the gains or losses attributed to your contributions is quite small. It's an estimate, but it's close enough for my purposes which makes it very useful (to me).


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## jcgd

I suppose that's true. My point is just that the number, in the real world, has no meaning. It is not your actual return and it cannot be compared to any other return (even one calculated the same way).


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## mrPPincer

@ Sampson, true, if everything is not included, say some cash holdings, then the results are skewed, not sure about RE though, because that could be considered partly a job too if you're a landlord.
Also, my 11.62% XIRR couch potato returns have probably been affected by the fact that I have done some new allocations this year, adding reits and EM, so the timing of that will likely be a factor.
I'll mention that when I update my earlier post.
This year's returns will possibly be more indicative of my ongoing strategy, hopefully they'll be as good.

Four Pillars, my new contributions are a small % as well, so they shouldn't skew it much either (but I'll still update with a true XIRR anyways)


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## jcgd

I'm ready to throw my computer cause I cannot figure out how to calculate my return. My starting value would be a negative value, correct? So:
Date, -starting value
date, deposit
date, deposit

What do I do with my account balance at the end of the year?


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## mrPPincer

I have not run the program yet and I'm too tired to try tonight but if I understand the question tomorrow or sunday I'll get back to you on that.


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## Spidey

I don't think Hboy's comments were meant in a mean spirited way but simply stating his point of view and perhaps stimulating discussion and feedback. 

There are a few things that come to mind to me as well. It seems that about 80% of the posters to this thread have outperformed some of the worlds best money-managers. Just one of those things that makes you go Hummmm. I haven't followed it up but I've heard that the best performing Canadian mutual fund returned 17%. And that was the best one. I do agree that all investments should be bundled for this sort of exercise and perhaps not cherry picking from the best portfolios. For example, I bundle my ING savings accounts into my return. 

That all being said, I realize that some of you are actually receiving some healthy returns and I believe that T-Girl is one of them.


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## jcgd

I'd appreciate that. My question isn't really that clear, but I'm honestly not sure what the help program is saying so it's hard to articulate what part I don't understand. Simply put, I'm stumped. And bald from pulling out my hair, aha.


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## GoldStone

jcgd said:


> I'm ready to throw my computer cause I cannot figure out how to calculate my return. My starting value would be a negative value, correct? So:
> Date, -starting value
> date, deposit
> date, deposit
> 
> What do I do with my account balance at the end of the year?


1. Make starting value positive.
2. Add final line. Date = 2012-12-31. Value = *-*Portfolio Balance.

http://www.financialwebring.org/gummy-stuff/XIRR-stuff.htm
http://www.financialwebring.org/gummy-stuff/xirr.htm


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## mrPPincer

jcgd you're right, the help program doesn't tell us how to input the year-end balance, maybe we should start a new thread asking if anybody here has used the openoffice program for this.
Goldstone, we're not using excel, it's openoffice and neither of us has used it before tonight.


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## GoldStone

The only difference between Excel XIRR and OpenOffice XIRR is the separator character in the formula. Excel uses comma. OpenOffice uses semi-column.

Excel:

=XIRR( Start_Value:End_Value , Start_Date:End_Date , Guess )

OpenOffice:

=XIRR( Start_Value:End_Value ; Start_Date:End_Date ; Guess )


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## mrPPincer

doh..
I already started the new thread :shame:
Thanks Goldstone 
I knew I should have waited until tomorrow to look into it, heh

*For anyone struggling with OpenOffice, I've found the diagrams provided by Goldstone in the following thread very helpful
Here's the link
http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showt...ion-to-OpenOffice-users-how-to-calculate-XIRR


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## Sampson

Spidey said:


> There are a few things that come to mind to me as well. It seems that about 80% of the posters to this thread have outperformed some of the worlds best money-managers. Just one of those things that makes you go Hummmm.


I suppose this is why I would argue that the single year's number is really somewhat irrelevant (I also trust people have made money, so it isn't irrelevant to them) but what happens to the net worth if one cannot consistently outperform, and in fact, if people severely underperform in the future?

I see absolutely no reason not to include all returns in the summary, nor has anyone really presented strong arguments for this.


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## scomac

Investment returns for 2012 XIRR of 9.39% on a year-end asset mix of 62:38 equity:fixed income. Returns since incpetion of accts. (Jan 01, 2002) of 8.28%.


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## Eclectic12

mrPPincer said:


> For anyone who doesn't have Excel, OpenOffice is a free, open source alternative, and considered superior by many.
> Here's a link
> http://www.openoffice.org/


True ... but if you prefer the version from the original developers who didn't like the direction Oracle was taking OpenOffice, there's also Libre Office ... so there is a fair amount of choice.

http://www.libreoffice.org/




Sampson said:


> What I took away from hboy's post was that he viewed the 'trading' as outliers that should not be included into the overall return, since they are outliers...


I'm not quite sure that's what he was getting at ... though I'm not sure I've seen all the posts in the conversation.

What I took away from his post was that the high returns (ex. triple digits) in his mind meant exceptional risk/luck, which was the equivalent of gambling and he didn't consider it investing. I suspect if the returns were posted as a more moderate number, say 40%, he wouldn't have brought in the "let's crown the lottery winner" bit.

Only he knows for sure.


Cheers


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## Eclectic12

Sampson said:


> The problem is, few people post their entire playbook....
> 
> I allude to this in my earlier comment regarding real estate. Who cares if your stock trading portfolio worth $20,000returned 30%, when your real estate assets worth $500,000 returned 0.5%?
> 
> Posting a single annual portfolio return is not enough information to help one adopt a new strategy...


A good point ... though for the RE, a lot depends. If one has bough RE as an investment, then yes - it should be included. However, most buy a house to have somewhere to live and it's not an investment.

In related way, another issue regardless of how effective the strategy is what one is willing to do. Going back to the RE - if the only RE is one's house and one is not willing to sell at the high to move somewhere cheaper (or rent for a while), is it really useful to know that someone else is making 300% off of RE?




Spidey said:


> I don't think Hboy's comments were meant in a mean spirited way but simply stating his point of view and perhaps stimulating discussion and feedback....


From other posts, I'm not sure there will be discussion but I agree, they didn't come across to me as mean spirited.




Spidey said:


> ...It seems that about 80% of the posters to this thread have outperformed some of the worlds best money-managers....I do agree that all investments should be bundled for this sort of exercise and perhaps not cherry picking from the best portfolios...


It's not really a surprise ... between those who aren't posting because they had worse returns (or don't figure them out), those who follow CMF because they are a more sophisticated investor, those who are cherry picking their return numbers and those who are rightly celebrating a good year, I'd have been surprised it was any other way.


Cheers


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## marina628

At the end of the day it is not worth arguing who made what ,I am comfortable sharing my networth in 2012 went from $1,051,420.52 to $1,520,556.00.The numbers increased due to $300,000 from a sale of a website which was subject to capital gains so this was my net amount after taxes.This is combination of my portfolios and my husband's including all our real estate and liability taken into consideration.I excluded our corporation and it's assets from our net worth because honestly I am not sure what a business that provides me $230,000 a year in revenue is worth on paper.I had offers to purchase in the 2 million range in 2010 which i declined (of course!)


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## My Own Advisor

Awesome work marina628, an inspiration...


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## jcgd

Well, looks like I have a 2012 XIRR of 12.47%, assuming I did the calculation correctly. So, I consider my benchmark to be the SP500 and that means I underperformed. Four more years to prove myself before I'm an indexer!

I still think I did okay for my first year of investing. Funny how the two stock I bought out of greed were the ones that destroyed my return for the year. Can I call them outliers and remove them?  Live and learn... hopefully that lesson only costs me this one time.


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## Four Pillars

jcgd said:


> I suppose that's true. My point is just that the number, in the real world, has no meaning. It is not your actual return and it cannot be compared to any other return (even one calculated the same way).


I'll agree for comparison, that the exact same calculation method should be used (ie XIRR or whatever). However, I don't calculate my return to compare to others, which leads to the conclusion that I really shouldn't be posting my numbers in this type of thread which is all about comparison.

The number does have meaning, because it's a pretty good estimate and that is good enough for my purposes.


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## jcgd

I hear ya Mike. I wasn't arguing for the sake of arguing, just so that others know the issues with certain calculation methods. It's not really up to me to tell you what should hold certain meaning to you now is it?


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## Causalien

This is the one year where I was too busy with other things than to touch my investment and since I've posted these holdings before, I guess these information are ok to post for me. 

You know my style. I only have 3 core holdings that make up most of my net worth:
BAC: 50% of portfolio 1 year
TSLA: 25% of portfolio 1 year
V: 10% of portfolio 1 year

If you need to fact check my buys and sells, look for the "What are you buying" thread and my name. It's all recorded with time stamps there and I recommend everyone to do the same so people are not confused about how well they are performing and who to follow. Because you have a moral duty to let people know that you suck, so they don't follow you and lose their shirt on the back of your pretended greatness.

There's a point to be made. Last year, my portfolio only increased by 1% and I posted that as well. If I cared about appearing good at what I do, I would never have been able to weather the downturn like I did. I find that writing and showing off on forums like these is detrimental to the actual monetary success of portfolios in real life and that really rich people don't show off. I go for the big wins and due to the risks I take, I usually spend several years in disgrace burning money. Having the need to tell people about it and appearing good at the same time is the same trap that mutual fund managers gets locked into at the end of the year. Why am I saying this? It's as a warning to some of you so you can get away from talking about how great you are and actually go out and earn money. You are falling in the same trap that I used to fall into when I first begin to go into stocks and finances. 

This is the reason why I decided to leave the forum, but I will drop back in whenever I am back in Canada to find knowledgeable people to discuss finance and business with. And boy, do I have stories to tell.


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## Young&Ambitious

Nice to see you back on the forum Causalien :02.47-tranquillity: hopefully next time you're in the city I'm not so downtrodden with the books that we can try to get together some of the Vancouverites for a CMF meet and greet.


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## dogcom

Causalien on this forum we can talk about our losses and for the most part I believe people do, but for sure there will be some that don't. If you look at the stocks you posted just now you couldn't talk to normal people throughout the year about them because they were not always going up. Most people you talk to will only care about the next week or two and if the stock started dropping, would judge you on that performance. Most people on the street think stock investing is outright trading and may give you a week or two at most to see if you are right or not and will not give you the entire year to see how you have done.

So the only people with the fame and to be listened to are going to be the very few that can trade successfully in the short term. They will only listen to the people that talk about the winners they had leaving out the losers. If one were to include the losers then they would think you don't know what you are doing and you are a poor investor. So I believe this is why people only talk about winners and their nice return because that is the only thing people will listen to.


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## Toronto.gal

Causalien said:


> It's as a *warning to some of you so you can get away from talking about how great you are* and actually *go out and earn money*.


You left the forum for months, and came back just to tell us your returns? Congrats!

As far as warning people what to say, and what to do with their lives, you are out of line; this is an adult forum, and you have no right to lecture anyone here, especially people you know nothing about.


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## thenegotiator

dogcom said:


> Causalien on this forum we can talk about our losses and for the most part I believe people do, but for sure there will be some that don't. If you look at the stocks you posted just now you couldn't talk to normal people throughout the year about them because they were not always going up. Most people you talk to will only care about the next week or two and if the stock started dropping, would judge you on that performance. Most people on the street think stock investing is outright trading and may give you a week or two at most to see if you are right or not and will not give you the entire year to see how you have done.
> 
> So the only people with the fame and to be listened to are going to be the very few that can trade successfully in the short term. They will only listen to the people that talk about the winners they had leaving out the losers. If one were to include the losers then they would think you don't know what you are doing and you are a poor investor. So I believe this is why people only talk about winners and their nice return because that is the only thing people will listen to.




I somewhat agree with you dog.
Actually let me go further on this.
I dunno who Causalien is.
I do not care who CausaliEn is.
I do not follow anybody since the crash and i enjoy to discuss about stocks, technicals and etc..
nevertheless I think that If i was to listen to someone i would listen to Mr. Buffet.
I would and I did put my money several times in stocks that he bought.
example BAC .
Of coarse i did not hold till it doubled.
i traded it.
the forum can be enlightening for the small investors like us.
It is a shame that from time to time we get comments like that from Caus a liEn .
discussions are healthy and nobody has to believe in what others made.
If another post like this resurfaces I will not answer.
It is irrelevant to me as it is for any trader.

i am waiting for a professional natural gas trader to join here so i can actually learn more about the trade .
i guarantee you that a pro natgas trader will lecture me as to how to trade natural gas.
i had a great online mentor but he has vanished.
i know some pit traders but they share very little with me of course.
it would be insider trading leak.
so far I had Equityval and the 1 dollar handle.:biggrin:

what a shame


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## Eclectic12

jcgd said:


> Well, looks like I have a 2012 XIRR of 12.47%, assuming I did the calculation correctly. So, I consider my benchmark to be the SP500 and that means I underperformed. Four more years to prove myself before I'm an indexer!
> 
> I still think I did okay for my first year of investing. Funny how the two stock I bought out of greed were the ones that destroyed my return for the year. Can I call them outliers and remove them?  Live and learn... hopefully that lesson only costs me this one time.


I don't know if I've worry about it, unless it becomes a trend. Others who started DIY investing the same year I did turned were losing money in six months, so if you are learning and reasonably close to your chosen benchmark, it is a good sign.

Just wondering if you portfolio is close enough in terms of investments to be using the SP500 as the benchmark ....


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## Rusty O'Toole

Suppose I might as well chip in.

Gold - up 8%

Silver - up 10%. Both still locked in a safe deposit box. I don't regard these as investments so much as a hedge against disaster.

Real estate - up 5%. I'm guessing here. Also, collected rents amounting to an 8% return, net. These are fully paid for properties so no leverage.

Mortgage - 8%. This is a little hard to figure exactly. I bought a house for $125,000 spent $17,000 on fix up so had $142,000 invested. Sold for $189,000 with a VTB mortgage of $169,000. $20,000 down payment, almost half eaten up by real estate commission, lawyer's fees and closing costs. The mortgage will pay me 8% interest only in monthly payments for 2 years, then choose to renew or cash out.

Stock market - down 3%. Made some fairly conservative investments, mostly ETFs, won some lost some, but ended up down for the year. Still learning. We'll get em this year.

So God bless everybody, have a safe and prosperous 2013.


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## Ethan

Started working on my tax return for my margin account over the lunch hour, so I thought I'd share the returns in my 3 accounts:

TFSA - 14.60%
RRSP - 25.99%

Margin account

- drew $25,000 from my HELOC
- capital gains of $5,655.00
- dividends of $826.75
- expenses of $(1,796.25) [$461.39 interest, $587.21 commissions, $747.65 legal/setup fees]
- net gain $4,685.50

What is the IRR on a gain of $4,685.50 in 23 weeks on a $0 investment?


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## Barwelle

undefined?


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## jcgd

Eclectic12 said:


> I don't know if I've worry about it, unless it becomes a trend. Others who started DIY investing the same year I did turned were losing money in six months, so if you are learning and reasonably close to your chosen benchmark, it is a good sign.
> 
> Just wondering if you portfolio is close enough in terms of investments to be using the SP500 as the benchmark ....


That's a good point. After really thinking about it, maybe the SP500 isn't a great benchmark. I'm not really sure what would make the most sense. My goal is to do better than I would do indexing, so what would I use as my benchmark?


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## Barwelle

Since your goal is to do better than you would by indexing, you could create the index portfolio that you would use (if you were indexing) on something like Google Finance or G&M or Investopedia, and use that as your benchmark.

Or use one of Canadian Couch Potato's model portfolios.

If you really wanted to be accurate, you could even add money to those fake portfolios whenever you add money to your real-life portfolio, and rebalance quarterly or annually. Shouldn't be a lot of work after it's set up... it is the couch potato portfolio, after all.

If you use Google Finance though, be aware that they don't convert the currency if you were to buy US-listed ETFs in your fake portfolio (they just assume 1CAD = 1USD), so it would throw off the accuracy a bit. Not sure about the others.


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## jcgd

Barwelle, what a great idea, thank you.


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## Barwelle

You're welcome!

Glad to help... even though you're from Calgary... :hopelessness:


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## jcgd

I'm only here to take Alberta's money. :chuncky: Then it's back the the east coast. Woot.


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## valueindexer

Barwelle said:


> Since your goal is to do better than you would by indexing, you could create the index portfolio that you would use (if you were indexing) on something like Google Finance or G&M or Investopedia, and use that as your benchmark.
> 
> Or use one of Canadian Couch Potato's model portfolios.
> 
> If you really wanted to be accurate, you could even add money to those fake portfolios whenever you add money to your real-life portfolio, and rebalance quarterly or annually. Shouldn't be a lot of work after it's set up... it is the couch potato portfolio, after all.
> 
> If you use Google Finance though, be aware that they don't convert the currency if you were to buy US-listed ETFs in your fake portfolio (they just assume 1CAD = 1USD), so it would throw off the accuracy a bit. Not sure about the others.


If you want to do better than indexing, you need to define what indexing is  The S&P 500 isn't a great benchmark because even many indexing strategies involve asset classes that aren't included in it. I compare myself to the MSCI world index since it is an index with holdings similar to my portfolio. This allows me to see if the different asset allocation I use (which is just 4 index funds) generates higher returns.

Often this is done using a blend of indexes. For example if 10% of your portfolio is in a Chinese solar panel startup stock, your comparison portfolio could have 10% in the China Small-Cap Cleantech Index. Then you can see if you really picked a good stock or you were just carried along by the market. If you can't do better than a portfolio using comparable indexes then you might as well save your time and just invest in those indexes.

You can compare yourself to anything else that you could have invested in; each choice will tell you different things about your strategy. You could even set a simple benchmark of getting a positive return every year if that would convince you that your strategy is worth your time.


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## Barwelle

Not really sure what you're getting at here, but jcgd said that he was stock-picking, and his goal was to do better than he would by indexing... so creating the indexed portfolio (i.e. a porfolio with several indexes weighted as he sees fit) that he _would_ be using _if he were_ indexing, and using that as his benchmark, makes sense to me.

Which (I think) is what you're getting at in your second paragraph.

But: I think it's still worth comparing your returns to broad market indexes as well (including S&P500 for the US market), in addition to the very specific indexes you refer to. Because you're trying to beat the broad market by focusing your investments in specific indexes instead of just investing in the market as a whole. You should be watching your returns to see if your strategy is beating the market or not. If your sector-specific index portfolio returns +8%, but then the broad markets returned +30%, how well did you really do?


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