Your 2014 portfolio return

[thepupil]

move to a smallish college/university town.  the public schools will be dominated by the children of the university employees and will be of high quality.  real estate prices are usually reasonable, at least in relation to coastal us cities.

 

haha, that's funny. I already moved from NYC to such a town since I didn't like my Wall Street job. You all would get a kick out of my former co-workers' answers to retirement numbers/required income. My boss was probably worth $20MM and didn't think he had enough; he was the best of my desk in terms of managing money, he bought growth stocks and just held on forever a la Phil Fisher. Others were terrible including one who was all gold and timber and lots of older guys who lost close to 100% of net worth in 2008 (company stock). My 29 yr old superior probably made $500K and probably spent 110% of it.

 

Nevertheless, in my college town most of the professors/doctors/lawyers/wealthy professionals send their kids to a very strong private school that is about $20K/year. We don't live in a meritocracy and fancy educations (and I mean actually high quality schools, a lot of expensive schools are terrible, as in investing you have to figure out which ones offer real value) offer a leg up and increase the odds of being able to do what you want to do and having a fulfilling and rewarding career, not to mention the network. You have to work hard and take advantage of it of course.

 

EDIT: I don't want to continue to hog this thread with my "why I want to make a lot of money and spend massive amounts on education" elitist rant but here is an article that popped up today

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-colleges-fill-more-seats-100000116.html

[writser]

First world problem: lifestyle inflation :) .

[jmp8822]

Following-up with the mrholty post (thanks for sharing your story) and discussion following hopefully for everyone's benefit:

 

I am a concentrated investor and plan to continue to be in the future, whether that means 1-2 positions with options protection, or 5-plus positions, perhaps with less options protection.

 

I would not be concentrated (or pick stocks myself at all) if I didn't think I could pick stocks that will generate high absolute compounded rates of return. Diversification is a great friend to the average stock picker for clearly defined reasons - one in particular - diversification randomizes errors. In contrast, the better you are at estimating company values, the better your long-term compounded results should be. I would prefer to own 10-plus stocks with a similar upside expectation, but in practice I haven't been able to do that. Unfortunately, all of us can easily be fooled by our true stock picking ability. Defining the amount of skill versus luck in results is difficult. 

 

Hopefully to clear the air somewhat - this is a spectrum - you have the power in advance to play through worst-case scenarios in your head, define what the risks of concentration look like, and then act to protect them if you wish.  You can ask yourself, do I want to buy one stock with no put option?  For most of us, our next thought would be, "no because my net worth could be wiped out due to accounting fraud, etc.".  That's a good thought to have. My next thought would be, what are my alternatives to holding one stock with no put option?  I can buy a put option to control my losses at a given strike price if I would like to, I can hold cash, or I can diversify.  Sometimes put options are prohibitively expensive or unavailable -  depending on how convicted you were about the thesis, you could skip that idea or size it smaller due to the absolute downside risk of having no put protection.

 

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure. 

[Liberty]

jmp8822, the reason why I wouldn't go again into extreme concentration (I currently have about 15 positions (and many of those are businesses that own many other smaller businesses), with my biggest one being 20%, so I'm still fairly concentrated --but at some point I had 2-3 positions) is because investing isn't like chess. There's a big luck factor, and even the best poker player in the world wouldn't bet their net worth on 1-2-3 hands.

 

Put options can definitely mitigate that, but in a universe of thousands of businesses to pick from, I think I should be able to find 10-15 ones that are good enough for me. Maybe your hurdle rate is much higher than mine, though...

[frommi]

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure.

 

You fool yourself when you think that way. See it as 50% of your networth in call options and then ask yourself if this is a prudent thing to do. 2 full losses after one another will wipe out 75%, after 3 you start from 12.5% of your networth again. According to Kelly formula you can be sure to overbet in most scenarios with this allocation. When you do it with 25% you are closer to the optimal bet, but i am pretty sure that these 100% returns are not achieveable that way. 10 stocks diversified over different countries and truly different businesses is safer, because what counts is the permanent loss of your money not the volatility.

[jmp8822]

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure.

 

You fool yourself when you think that way. See it as 50% of your net-worth in call options and then ask yourself if this is a prudent thing to do. 2 full losses after one another will wipe out 75%, after 3 you start from 12.5% of your net-worth again. According to Kelly formula you can be sure to over-bet in most scenarios with this allocation. When you do it with 25% you are closer to the optimal bet, but i am pretty sure that these 100% returns are not achievable that way. 10 stocks diversified over different countries and truly different businesses is safer, because what counts is the permanent loss of your money not the volatility.

 

Would you invest 50% of your net worth in call options?  I think we can both agree that a deep in the money call options are much different than out of the money call options.  That is a misleading question, a scare-tactic type of question, aimed at people who don't easily understand how options work.  That said, would I consider it? I would consider any position in relation to the estimated risk of loss.  It sounds like you think a 50% loss is too much - no problem - I agree that is a lot to lose (although everyone who owns stocks un-hedged is currently taking that risk).  How about you buy the put strike at a 30% loss? 20% loss?  The idea is simple - if you have lots of great ideas and can keep the running estimated value, certainly buy all of them. You likely would have a great result. If you don't have lots of great ideas, in relation to each other, it might be cheaper and less risk to the future value of your portfolio to own just one idea, with a put option that protects the amount you are willing to lose. 

 

This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year.  That person might find lots of stocks with 30% estimated upside, buy the basket, and do well over time.  Or you might find one or two stocks with 100% estimated upside (50% discount), while all the others now appear much more expensive with 30% estimated upside.  Why would you take on the opportunity cost of buying all the other stocks with 30% upside, when you could certainly be wrong on those as well, and they are the riskier stocks?  We can choose to hold cash, buy puts, and diversify.  Opportunity cost is real - just as real as the money I can lose in worst case scenarios.

[writser]

May I ask how old you are and what amount you are roughly investing compared to your income?

[thepupil]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

[jmp8822]

May I ask how old you are and what amount you are roughly investing compared to your income?

 

20s - 8x annual income.

[oddballstocks]

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure.

 

You fool yourself when you think that way. See it as 50% of your networth in call options and then ask yourself if this is a prudent thing to do. 2 full losses after one another will wipe out 75%, after 3 you start from 12.5% of your networth again. According to Kelly formula you can be sure to overbet in most scenarios with this allocation. When you do it with 25% you are closer to the optimal bet, but i am pretty sure that these 100% returns are not achieveable that way. 10 stocks diversified over different countries and truly different businesses is safer, because what counts is the permanent loss of your money not the volatility.

 

Clearly jmp8822 is much smarter than the rest of us here.  Us mere mortals can't fathom what it's like to "know" what will do well in the future. 

 

I've seen many crash and burn, I wish you the best.  I had a friend years ago who could do no wrong, every trade was successful and he was making money hand over fist.  Then suddenly he stopped talking about trading, which was strange because previously he'd send out chats and emails about how much money he made per trade.  Clammed up and said his wife told him to stop.  So I asked myself, why would such a successful guy stop if he had the golden touch, it was because the golden touch doesn't last forever.  As mrholty said, he could do no wrong for 10 years, but once the golden touch was gone it was gone.  This friend had his shirt handed to him eventually, hasn't touched stocks since.

 

There is a reason the investing greats talk about risk, downsides and not losing money.  It isn't because they're a bunch of old fuddy-duddy individuals, it's that they've seen a number of market cycles.

 

There is some great wisdom and advice on this board.  Many in this thread have said once they hit a certain point risk management is important, I'd concur with them.  I heavily concentrated on a few positions when I was starting out, but I also had the ability to save my portfolio's value in a year.  That's not true anymore, yet at higher portfolio values compounding is more important than outsized gains.  I'd rather compound at 12% verses have a portfolio that's up 50% one year and down 35% the next and up 60% after that.

 

The path to wealth (in anything, not just money) is compounding.  Little bits daily add up to a lot later.

[jmp8822]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

 

I agree 15% is a great result - if I actually believed I would make 15% compounded over time, I would not invest myself. I would send my money to a value investor that I thought could achieve that.

[oddballstocks]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

 

Warren Buffet eat your heart out...

 

This thread reminds me of the childrens story the tortoise and the hare, clearly the hare is jmp8822, but we all know the tortoise (value investing, patience and long term results) wins eventually.  But you can't tell the hare that, he's going to fast.

 

Like those guys on the Sears thread who put the majority of their wealth into that stock I truly get concerned about investors who are so confident in their own abilities that they risk blowing up.  I'm not against concentrating, I strongly believe in it when one has the ability to influence the outcome.  Putting 100% of your wealth, or 200% of your wealth into your own business is alright in my book.  Putting 100% or even 80% of your portfolio into a company that you have no control over is foolish.  Some learn from the mistakes of others, some need to learn from their own mistakes.

[jmp8822]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

 

Warren Buffet eat your heart out...

 

This thread reminds me of the childrens story the tortoise and the hare, clearly the hare is jmp8822, but we all know the tortoise (value investing, patience and long term results) wins eventually.  But you can't tell the hare that, he's going to fast.

 

Like those guys on the Sears thread who put the majority of their wealth into that stock I truly get concerned about investors who are so confident in their own abilities that they risk blowing up.  I'm not against concentrating, I strongly believe in it when one has the ability to influence the outcome.  Putting 100% of your wealth, or 200% of your wealth into your own business is alright in my book.  Putting 100% or even 80% of your portfolio into a company that you have no control over is foolish.  Some learn from the mistakes of others, some need to learn from their own mistakes.

 

Forgive me for upsetting you - I was hoping we could have a conversation without the attacks.

[oddballstocks]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

 

Warren Buffet eat your heart out...

 

This thread reminds me of the childrens story the tortoise and the hare, clearly the hare is jmp8822, but we all know the tortoise (value investing, patience and long term results) wins eventually.  But you can't tell the hare that, he's going to fast.

 

Like those guys on the Sears thread who put the majority of their wealth into that stock I truly get concerned about investors who are so confident in their own abilities that they risk blowing up.  I'm not against concentrating, I strongly believe in it when one has the ability to influence the outcome.  Putting 100% of your wealth, or 200% of your wealth into your own business is alright in my book.  Putting 100% or even 80% of your portfolio into a company that you have no control over is foolish.  Some learn from the mistakes of others, some need to learn from their own mistakes.

 

Forgive me for upsetting you - I was hoping we could have a conversation without the attacks.

 

I've been around here long enough to see a number of posters similar to yourself come and go.  People will come on and claim they have this incredible market beating strategy and they're so much smarter than everyone else.  Then suddenly they disappear to never be heard from again.

 

When I read your posts they sound very similar to that pattern.  Maybe you're different, I have no idea.  But if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and looks like a duck...

[writser]

Unfortunately I have to agree. A (probably) very smart 20-something who runs a small,  extremely concentrated portfolio with option protection that compounded for 65% CAGR in 7 years and you are aiming for 60% annually. You could be the next superstar but a random investor from that subset is extremely likely to blow up at some point imho.

[jmp8822]

"This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year"

 

what does that mean? 15% / year over time is spectacular.

 

Warren Buffet eat your heart out...

 

This thread reminds me of the childrens story the tortoise and the hare, clearly the hare is jmp8822, but we all know the tortoise (value investing, patience and long term results) wins eventually.  But you can't tell the hare that, he's going to fast.

 

Like those guys on the Sears thread who put the majority of their wealth into that stock I truly get concerned about investors who are so confident in their own abilities that they risk blowing up.  I'm not against concentrating, I strongly believe in it when one has the ability to influence the outcome.  Putting 100% of your wealth, or 200% of your wealth into your own business is alright in my book.  Putting 100% or even 80% of your portfolio into a company that you have no control over is foolish.  Some learn from the mistakes of others, some need to learn from their own mistakes.

 

Forgive me for upsetting you - I was hoping we could have a conversation without the attacks.

 

I've been around here long enough to see a number of posters similar to yourself come and go.  People will come on and claim they have this incredible market beating strategy and they're so much smarter than everyone else.  Then suddenly they disappear to never be heard from again.

 

When I read your posts they sound very similar to that pattern.  Maybe you're different, I have no idea.  But if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, and looks like a duck...

 

Sorry if I gave you the vibe I thought I was smarter than you - I've read your blog before and have respect for your work.

[Kraven]

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure.

 

You fool yourself when you think that way. See it as 50% of your net-worth in call options and then ask yourself if this is a prudent thing to do. 2 full losses after one another will wipe out 75%, after 3 you start from 12.5% of your net-worth again. According to Kelly formula you can be sure to over-bet in most scenarios with this allocation. When you do it with 25% you are closer to the optimal bet, but i am pretty sure that these 100% returns are not achievable that way. 10 stocks diversified over different countries and truly different businesses is safer, because what counts is the permanent loss of your money not the volatility.

 

Would you invest 50% of your net worth in call options?  I think we can both agree that a deep in the money call options are much different than out of the money call options.  That is a misleading question, a scare-tactic type of question, aimed at people who don't easily understand how options work.  That said, would I consider it? I would consider any position in relation to the estimated risk of loss.  It sounds like you think a 50% loss is too much - no problem - I agree that is a lot to lose (although everyone who owns stocks un-hedged is currently taking that risk).  How about you buy the put strike at a 30% loss? 20% loss?  The idea is simple - if you have lots of great ideas and can keep the running estimated value, certainly buy all of them. You likely would have a great result. If you don't have lots of great ideas, in relation to each other, it might be cheaper and less risk to the future value of your portfolio to own just one idea, with a put option that protects the amount you are willing to lose. 

 

This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year.  That person might find lots of stocks with 30% estimated upside, buy the basket, and do well over time.  Or you might find one or two stocks with 100% estimated upside (50% discount), while all the others now appear much more expensive with 30% estimated upside.  Why would you take on the opportunity cost of buying all the other stocks with 30% upside, when you could certainly be wrong on those as well, and they are the riskier stocks?  We can choose to hold cash, buy puts, and diversify.  Opportunity cost is real - just as real as the money I can lose in worst case scenarios.

 

"Just like a young man coming in for a quickie.... You must feel proud and good. Strong enough to beat the world." - Teddy KGB

[Liberty]

jmp8822, I'd like to ask you a question.

 

Can you give us the name of some of the stocks that you've held and had great success with in the past with your concentrated approach? No need to divulge your current portfolio if you are not comfortable with that (though that would be even better), but I'm curious to see what you consider businesses that are safe enough to put almost all your net worth into and yet that have potential to get superlative results.

[jay21]

jmp8822, I'd like to ask you a question.

 

Can you give us the name of some of the stocks that you've held and had great success with in the past with your concentrated approach? No need to divulge your current portfolio if you are not comfortable with that (though that would be even better), but I'm curious to see what you consider businesses that are safe enough to put almost all your net worth into.

 

Gave them earlier I believe: AIG, BAC, GNW, IDT

 

correct jmp?

[jmp8822]

jmp8822, I'd like to ask you a question.

 

Can you give us the name of some of the stocks that you've held and had great success with in the past with your concentrated approach? No need to divulge your current portfolio if you are not comfortable with that (though that would be even better), but I'm curious to see what you consider businesses that are safe enough to put almost all your net worth into.

 

Gave them earlier I believe: AIG, BAC, GNW, IDT

 

correct jmp?

 

That's correct.

[jmp8822]

Can one stock with a put be less risky than owing 10 stocks? I would answer definitely yes.  The more stocks you add, if you are a good stock picker, the more opportunity cost you add to your portfolio.  The 5% it costs you to buy a put on your one-two-three best ideas might be much cheaper than the 20% hypothetical opportunity cost of adding your next seven to nine best ideas to your portfolio.  You must be okay being wrong from time to time, always keeping in mind what is your absolute dollar-value downside risk, assessing whether or not you are okay with your exposure.

 

You fool yourself when you think that way. See it as 50% of your net-worth in call options and then ask yourself if this is a prudent thing to do. 2 full losses after one another will wipe out 75%, after 3 you start from 12.5% of your net-worth again. According to Kelly formula you can be sure to over-bet in most scenarios with this allocation. When you do it with 25% you are closer to the optimal bet, but i am pretty sure that these 100% returns are not achievable that way. 10 stocks diversified over different countries and truly different businesses is safer, because what counts is the permanent loss of your money not the volatility.

 

Would you invest 50% of your net worth in call options?  I think we can both agree that a deep in the money call options are much different than out of the money call options.  That is a misleading question, a scare-tactic type of question, aimed at people who don't easily understand how options work.  That said, would I consider it? I would consider any position in relation to the estimated risk of loss.  It sounds like you think a 50% loss is too much - no problem - I agree that is a lot to lose (although everyone who owns stocks un-hedged is currently taking that risk).  How about you buy the put strike at a 30% loss? 20% loss?  The idea is simple - if you have lots of great ideas and can keep the running estimated value, certainly buy all of them. You likely would have a great result. If you don't have lots of great ideas, in relation to each other, it might be cheaper and less risk to the future value of your portfolio to own just one idea, with a put option that protects the amount you are willing to lose. 

 

This conversation isn't for the person trying to make 15% per year.  That person might find lots of stocks with 30% estimated upside, buy the basket, and do well over time.  Or you might find one or two stocks with 100% estimated upside (50% discount), while all the others now appear much more expensive with 30% estimated upside.  Why would you take on the opportunity cost of buying all the other stocks with 30% upside, when you could certainly be wrong on those as well, and they are the riskier stocks?  We can choose to hold cash, buy puts, and diversify.  Opportunity cost is real - just as real as the money I can lose in worst case scenarios.

 

"Just like a young man coming in for a quickie.... You must feel proud and good. Strong enough to beat the world." - Teddy KGB

 

Great movie - which part do you disagree with most?

[rkbabang]

Opportunity cost is real - just as real as the money I can lose in worst case scenarios.

 

I was just reading a story about how they cracked one version of poker and programmed a computer that will always win in the long term.  They did this with an algorithm to have the computer always minimize the worst case scenario.

 

How a computer program took the gambling out of poker

 

"These algorithms look at situations and come up with a decision that has, to put it simply, the best worst case. Regret minimization tries to come up with answers with the smallest amount of downside."

 

[yadayada]

Seems like there is a huge difference between owning 5 stocks or just one. Especially if that one stock can theoretically go to zero. Maybe not as much as between owning 5 and 15. But 1 to 5 is a huge step.

[krazeenyc]

I think ones personal situation has to be taken into account here.

 

Let's say you're an unmarried young anesthesiologist (28 years old)? making $250-$400k a year, have some med school debt and $100K in liquid savings in IRAs.  If you really know what you're doing I wouldn't see anything wrong with being super concentrated and own just 1-5 positions (of course if you're going to be doing this -- I would expect you know what you're doing).

 

I'm in my mid 30s and married with young children -- I don't want to even ever have to contemplate about working for someone else because of money. My wife has a PhD in neurobiology, but wanted to stay home with the kids while they're young.  She's thinking about working just b/c she wants to have a career.  Our net worth far exceeds 100x what her gross salary would be, so given our ability for earned income I'm just not in the same position to be super concentrated.  Although of course, you could always employ Eric's strategy and be 100% hedged.

 

[Hielko]

Opportunity cost is real - just as real as the money I can lose in worst case scenarios.

 

I was just reading a story about how they cracked one version of poker and programmed a computer that will always win in the long term.  They did this with an algorithm to have the computer always minimize the worst case scenario.

 

How a computer program took the gambling out of poker

 

"These algorithms look at situations and come up with a decision that has, to put it simply, the best worst case. Regret minimization tries to come up with answers with the smallest amount of downside."

Bit off-topic, but the writer of that article doesn't understand what game theory optimal play is and what it means w.r.t. strategy. The computer plays a strategy that cannot be exploited by any conceivable counter strategy. The trade off is that it cannot maximally exploit an opponent that plays an imperfect strategy. So in a sense it tries to minimize downside risk, but this is certainly not true when you look at individual hands. Risk adjusted returns are not a consideration when developing a GTO solution, only the maximization of expected value while staying unexploitable.

 

If you give a poker bot a bet with $10,000,000 downside but with a positive expected value of $1 it is going to take that bet! It might even take that bet when the expected value is zero*, so that's not what most people would consider minimizing downside risk.

 

* For example a higher calling frequency could make it necessary for the opponent to have a lower bluffing frequency which might increase the expected value of weak hands that would have folded to a bluff.