Your 2014 portfolio return

[Crip1]

 

+ 116 % annual return this year and that followed 88 % last year. I have enought experience to know results can be volatile over years, so I continue to work hard and be very fortunate to collaborate with exceptionals investors.

 

My largest position still Biosyent, so with the current valuation my return should be lower this year. Rene Goehrum continue to show us how good can be this business model to compound capital.

 

A very good year to all.

 

 

Biosyent, being a smaller cap, is rather volatile. Do you have a target price or intrinsic value?

 

 

-Crip

[Guest Schwab711]

As I expected: 1 yr, pretax:  -2.9%

 

10 year after tax: 37% cagr

10 year after tax tossing best and worst year, after tax = 26% cagr

 

Would have been better had I stayed away from Pennwest - slightly positive instead of slightly negative.  Seaspan is down too, but that is only temporary.

 

Maybe you said it before, but how did you make it? 1 stock drive it or many winners? Was it lumpy? I think you mentioned you were an engineer before? If not, what do you do? Congratulations either way

[writser]

2012: +22.0%.

2013: +24.1%

2014: +17.5%.

 

I made a few stupid mistakes during the year. Most notably shorting CYNK which blew up completely in my face (position sizing ...). Nevertheless I am reasonably happy all things considered. Previous years I held lots of cash (>30%) and was very restricted in my investing due to my job. I quit my job in 2014 and during the year I have deployed almost all my excess cash and now I have a diversified portfolio of cheap (mostly small cap) stuff. I also learned a lot about investing during the year.

[giofranchi]

+2.34% so far this year... Ahahahah!!!! ;)

 

Cheers,

 

Gio

[ASTA]

-4%

lessons learned

1. Put less emphases on this forums recommendations (some are great but I jump in to stupid things)

2. Please don't listen to my ideas. 

3. Don't put 14% in a small oc company with allot of debt 14% should be saved for IBM or similar.

4. My strengths is really in no debt or large cap companies.

5. Barely beating the index the last 4 years lets hope my activities are worth while long term.

6. I am 40% in Oil and Steel so to put it mildly tough.

 

Cheers 

[mrholty]

Long time lurker (2+ years) without an account.  Decided to make my first post here. 

 

I ended this year down 13%.  This is my third straight year of underperformance to the S&P even though my picks are more in the Russell universe.  I've been investing on my own for the past 14 years.  In the early years (early 20s) I had no money and almost everything went to my 401k.  A small slug of $2k and due to transaction costs I invested in the industry that I worked in and felt I understood better than most.  Due to concentration that quickly became $10k and then $25k with some of the additions being additional capital added.  I often had years of over 50%.  After switching jobs I'd take my 401k and add that an increase the amount of money I was investing for myself.  I went short with leverage via options and when Lehman blew up those were good days.  That day I touched $800k and due to me rolling options and thinking the end was near I didn't close them out and ultimately went 100% flat with $250k.  I felt like a genius.  I spent 6 months flat and looking for deals.  I saw a lot of cheap but I was greedy and wanted free.  I started to wade into the distressed space and hit a few doubles with small amounts.  Then I did very well on Chemtura and HearUSA (HEARQ).  Accounts were nearing $750k and I was getting a big head.  My next few investments I went bigger with size as I wasn't enjoying my day job and I've had a goal that if I get to $4M I walk away from my job. 

 

My next investment was in DIMEQ and I took at 30% stake or $200k with an average purchase price in the low $.30s (600k shares) after spending several grand on PACER.  As the stock rose in 2010 to $.80 I was over a million and each day I felt like FV was $2-$3/share and the rulings were in our favor.  I felt like when we won and got $2.50/share I would be over $2M and I could get conservative and churn out 10% year for 7 years and retire by age 40 with $4M.  Granted at the time if asked I would have told you that I estimated the odds were 70/30 or 80/20 in our favor and realistically I was really thought it was more like 90/10 and thought the other side really had no case.  That Christmas my first son was just a few months old and I was supposed to be enjoying family, friends, my 2 month newborn and yet I had 60% of our investments in a judges hands.  My work output was crap for all of November and December and I was having ulcers from stress (but didn't know it).  I went up to my family hometown for New Years for a few days to clear my mind and made up my mind to sell half immediately upon return.  I started to liquidate half my position but the bid/ask was a few pennies and I didn't want to lose 10% on the spread so I was slowly selling the 300k shares I wanted to.  I only sold 80 shares when the ruling hit around 11 IIRC and the bottom fell out in minutes to $.40 and then down to $.13 within the hour.  After all that I was crushed emotionally.  My goal of retirement which I could see was gone. 

 

I dabbled and lost on my next two special distressed plays due to trying to be cute.  I had the story right and the prices but one doubled and one was up 4x and I broke even on both.  I then put money in two ideas that I liked (Ram Power - initially from a writeup on Seeking Alpha) and Axion Power (also seeking alpha).  Both are down 90% from when I bought and I double down on both as I thought I knew more.  On Axion Power I listened to the calls, I visited the plant, etc.  Q1 2013 call hit me.  A caller asked about breakeven and the CEO said they saw 300% revenue growth in the backhalf of the year.  I bought more as I thought he had visibility into upcoming orders as they were doing tests with BMW, other Autos and Norfolk Southern and had been for 2-3 years.  If they simply published an order from one of those the stock would double.  The next call he backtracked from the number and timing but still felt confident in the revenue growth.  An order(s) felt imminent.  Turns out the emporer has no clothes.  NS has had problems outside the battery that has slowed development by 18-24 months and shows that its really not a high priority for them as was led to believe in 2012.  I found shipping logs that Axion sent to a battery testing company in 2013 in Germany.  Surely that was a sign that BMW was going forward still as they were checking quality.  All wrong.  Q3 2013 a disasterous financing went off.  So bad that I felt that the only way mgmt. could have signed it was that they knew an order was imminent otherwise it was irresponsible.  I bought more.  Then CFO resigned.  New CFO hired and resigns to go back to old company with promotion after 3-4 months in early 2014.  CEO resigns due to health in summer 2014.  Prior CFO comes back from board to fill in and finishes up Reverse split and uplisting to Nasdaq to get off the OTC.  Stock is now one of the worst performers of the NASDAQ.  I usually have no problem selling when the story isn't playing out.  This one I couldn't as I love the idea and the tech seems pretty good.  I got too close to former board members to ignore the warning signals.  From 2011-2013 the CEO always spoke about new work being done in the caribbean with solar for storage and that business case would make sense due to high electricity prices but I could never find any test sites or anything but I trusted the CEO that stuff was going on and you would be hearing more soon.  I knew how long things take in these countries so I always accepted the delays.  Looking back the delays were too long in aggregate.  (I justified it as I myself was working on getting some documentation in Europe that took over 15 months to get a piece of paper approval so I felt I understood.  In early 2014 I finally found a guy who was working with the company and he told me all about the Caribbean work he was doing.  That 30 minute phone call told me that if they were counting on him that was a mistake.  I sold out half finally over the next month but I still owned a bunch as the RS/uplisting was a positive to me.  Something good was on the horizon.  At this point I would need a 20x to break even. 

 

My investments are now down to $250k in value.  Its been an amazing 14 years in which the first 10 I could do no wrong.  Now I can do no right.  I've learned a ton about all sorts of randon stuff that has made be a better investor the last few years.  I'm happy this thread wasn't here 10 years ago as I would have been the guy talking about 60-100% annual returns and concentrated positions.  I still run concentrated positions (10-20) but I have a checklist that I follow religiously.  I will also work until I'm 65.

[bookie71]

mrholty,

Your post reminded me of something someone told me years ago.  It was to set up a separate brokerage account (I call it my crap shooting account) at another brokerage with an amount that i could afford to lose.  In it I have found out that I don't do margin, options or active trading.  I do all my experimenting. It started out at 10,000 was up to over 40,000 and is at 15,000 now. My regular account have done quite well, but because I got the off beat things out of my system

P.S. The crap shooting account has evolved to be more like the other accounts.

 

[Liberty]

Thanks for sharing your story and welcome to the forum. I'm sure that what happened to you happens to a lot of people, and I've certainly had my ups and down myself and learned a lot from those experiences.

 

Ideally, we always want to learn from other people's mistakes. That's the rational thing. But sometimes nothing truly teaches the lesson that personal experience and losing significant money does.

 

I hope you will keep posting, I'm sure we all have a lot to learn from you.

 

Cheers!

[innerscorecard]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

[mrholty]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

To be honest with you it was a number I had chose with my wife when we were engaged.  What I didn't mention was that all my investing was done in an IRA.  At some point if I was going to live off it I would have to pay a large tax bill.  My plan was take $1M in safe corporate bonds/government bonds to hopefully provide $50k (after tax) of income.  Another $1M I would invest in some distressed hedge funds with guys I know are smarter than I.  $1M was for me to start a couple of businesses that I want to start and for me to sleep well at night I'd rather not have the bank debt (even if I could find a bank willing to do so).  This investement would be in an economically depressed area has had large population losses and it would be more of me trying to create an industry to help an area I love very much.  The last $1M was to bet set aside for taxes (mentioned above), pay off the house, and use to invest myself.

In reality what really wiped me out was I knew that I didn't need $4M but $2M would have been perfect so the DIMEQ investment could have gotten me to a number that I really wanted. 

 

Now, I've switched jobs, am happier and work harder and longer hours than ever before.  This allows me less time to think about investments which in reality makes me a better investor. 

 

The reason for my post was that I heard myself in some of those previous people who were doing great.  I still think the DIMEQ decision was wrong and know several others who feel the same and know others who lost more than me.  What still bothers me about that one is that in two different cases JPM has stated two distinct and different things about how it was acquired.  To be honest other than the position sizing I would have still invested in DIMEQ if brought forward today. 

 

Once I have a new idea I'll be glad to post it to the boards.  Just started to work on something interesting last week but I don't know when I'll be done. 

 

 

[innerscorecard]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

To be honest with you it was a number I had chose with my wife when we were engaged.  What I didn't mention was that all my investing was done in an IRA.  At some point if I was going to live off it I would have to pay a large tax bill.  My plan was take $1M in safe corporate bonds/government bonds to hopefully provide $50k (after tax) of income.  Another $1M I would invest in some distressed hedge funds with guys I know are smarter than I.  $1M was for me to start a couple of businesses that I want to start and for me to sleep well at night I'd rather not have the bank debt (even if I could find a bank willing to do so).  This investement would be in an economically depressed area has had large population losses and it would be more of me trying to create an industry to help an area I love very much.  The last $1M was to bet set aside for taxes (mentioned above), pay off the house, and use to invest myself.

In reality what really wiped me out was I knew that I didn't need $4M but $2M would have been perfect so the DIMEQ investment could have gotten me to a number that I really wanted. 

 

Now, I've switched jobs, am happier and work harder and longer hours than ever before.  This allows me less time to think about investments which in reality makes me a better investor. 

 

The reason for my post was that I heard myself in some of those previous people who were doing great.  I still think the DIMEQ decision was wrong and know several others who feel the same and know others who lost more than me.  What still bothers me about that one is that in two different cases JPM has stated two distinct and different things about how it was acquired.  To be honest other than the position sizing I would have still invested in DIMEQ if brought forward today. 

 

Once I have a new idea I'll be glad to post it to the boards.  Just started to work on something interesting last week but I don't know when I'll be done.

 

Interesting, thanks for explaining. I and many other on this forum have a lot to learn from you. Really look forward to reading your future posts.

[Kraven]

Mrholty - thank you for sharing your story.  I am surprised that it isn't getting more traction on the board.  It should be required reading especially for many of the younger posters who don't realize that sometimes things don't work out the way they should or the way they anticipate.  The best laid plans and all that. 

[oddballstocks]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

To be honest with you it was a number I had chose with my wife when we were engaged.  What I didn't mention was that all my investing was done in an IRA.  At some point if I was going to live off it I would have to pay a large tax bill.  My plan was take $1M in safe corporate bonds/government bonds to hopefully provide $50k (after tax) of income.  Another $1M I would invest in some distressed hedge funds with guys I know are smarter than I.  $1M was for me to start a couple of businesses that I want to start and for me to sleep well at night I'd rather not have the bank debt (even if I could find a bank willing to do so).  This investement would be in an economically depressed area has had large population losses and it would be more of me trying to create an industry to help an area I love very much.  The last $1M was to bet set aside for taxes (mentioned above), pay off the house, and use to invest myself.

In reality what really wiped me out was I knew that I didn't need $4M but $2M would have been perfect so the DIMEQ investment could have gotten me to a number that I really wanted. 

 

Now, I've switched jobs, am happier and work harder and longer hours than ever before.  This allows me less time to think about investments which in reality makes me a better investor. 

 

The reason for my post was that I heard myself in some of those previous people who were doing great.  I still think the DIMEQ decision was wrong and know several others who feel the same and know others who lost more than me.  What still bothers me about that one is that in two different cases JPM has stated two distinct and different things about how it was acquired.  To be honest other than the position sizing I would have still invested in DIMEQ if brought forward today. 

 

Once I have a new idea I'll be glad to post it to the boards.  Just started to work on something interesting last week but I don't know when I'll be done.

 

Appreciate the candid post.  The nature of message boards is you often hear about the success and when people fail they completely disappear.  So it seems like everyone is killing it.  Rather there are others who shared your experience it's just they gave up and disappeared.  A post like yours is a great warning to everyone that nothing is guaranteed and sometimes shooting for the stars doesn't even guarantee a moon landing.

[merkhet]

Agree with Kraven & oddballstocks. Thanks for sharing your story mrholty. Hope to see you on the boards more often.

[jay21]

Appreciate the candid post.  The nature of message boards is you often hear about the success and when people fail they completely disappear.  So it seems like everyone is killing it.  Rather there are others who shared your experience it's just they gave up and disappeared.  A post like yours is a great warning to everyone that nothing is guaranteed and sometimes shooting for the stars doesn't even guarantee a moon landing.

 

Quite true. I like this related quote:

 

"If you walk down the main street of a resort town any summer night, for example, and see happy people holding hands, eating ice-cream cones, laughing, etc., it’s easy to begin to think that other people are happier, more loving, more productive than you are, and so become unnecessarily despondent. Yet it is precisely on such occasions that people display their good attributes, whereas they tend to hide and become “invisible” when they are depressed. We should all remember that our impressions of others are usually filtered in this way, and that our sampling of people and their moods is not random. It’s beneficial to wonder occasionally what percentage of people you encounter suffer from this or that disease or inadequacy."

 

[writser]

Mrholty - thank you for sharing your story.  I am surprised that it isn't getting more traction on the board.  It should be required reading especially for many of the younger posters who don't realize that sometimes things don't work out the way they should or the way they anticipate.  The best laid plans and all that.

 

Yeah, really appreciated. Usually people only post their success stories.

[BG2008]

Mrholty,

 

Thank you for sharing your story.  I am personally familiar with some of the names that you have listed.  As someone why run a concentrated portfolio, I have printed out a copy of your post and put it next to my "checklist" as a reminder for myself. 

[Ham Hockers]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

[thepupil]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

 

yep, I thought $4mm was too low.

[rkbabang]

Thanks for the story mrholty. I always enjoy and learn a lot from the reading the personal experiences of other ordinary people.

 

But why did you think you needed $4 million (!) to retire...? Obviously, if you like working, you should continue working. But if you really wanted or want to retire, you sure as hell don't need that much money.

 

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

 

yep, I thought $4mm was too low.

 

I did as well.  Maybe it's just because I like my day job, but I plan to work until at least 60 yrs old regardless of what level my portfolio reaches. 

I'd have to be up into 8 figures before I'd even consider retiring earlier.

 

 

[Liberty]

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

 

True. But the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle is probably more like retiring on 600k, so 4 million is more like Mr. Money Monocle :)

[Ham Hockers]

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

 

True. But the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle is probably more like retiring on 600k, so 4 million is more like Mr. Money Monocle :)

 

Ha! Good point

[bobp]

Mrholty - I recognized your name from that other message board on dimeq. The one with Bluzie and merchantofdeath. It's very funny seeing the name here.

 

Dime made sense I think at the right price. And it had a few big runs in it's lifetime.  I guess it all came down to position sizing. The position at 1.25 probably shouldn't have been the same as it was at 30 cents, but you learn.

 

And I know all too well the feeling of being a genius one day and a loser the next.

 

I think the pain of losing a large amount is always worse than the satisfaction of making the same amount.

But....you could make all that dime money back in wmih! Merchantof death loves it! Just kidding.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nikhil25]

Mrholty - It takes a lot of courage to share your failures and I appreciate you sharing your story. Look forward to learning more from your experiences and wish you the best!

[thepupil]

How much a person feels he needs to retire is totally up to him. There is no right number. And not everyone wants to live the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle.

 

True. But the Mr. Money Mustache lifestyle is probably more like retiring on 600k, so 4 million is more like Mr. Money Monocle :)

 

assuming a 4% withdrawal rate, $4mm = $160K isn't exactly champagne and caviar. that's just getting by (albeit nicely) in some parts of the country when you factor in housing/kids/private education a decent vacation here and there etc. I don't know what 40 yr old or 50 yr old wife'd and kids'd up  me will spend since that's 15 or 25 yrs from now, but it's probably a lot  more than $160K.