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Your 2014 portfolio return


muscleman
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For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

 

Yes i use leverage.  My portfolio is not concentrate in 1 stock, i have 13 stocks in the portfolio i managed.  Those porfolios have equity in mid 7 figures. I managed portfolio for family, friend and for me.

 

I started in summer of 2001 and since that my CARG in margin account is 24.6% and in the RRSP (no margin involved) 24,8% or 24,7% for both.  I use a lot more leverage a few years ago but now my objective is to have 1$ of equity for 1 $ of debt.  Now i am less leverage than that. 

 

It's sure that 86% is not repeatable.  And i don't expect to repeat 24,7% for long term. It would be great if i repeat it but i know the probability are very low, near impossible.  Now i'am 40 years old and i will retired in march.

 

I am not overconfident.  I got a near destruction of my margin account in the last historical crisis.  It's why my leveraged return are less that the RRSP (no leverage).

 

Some of my best investment since 2001 was ATD.b.to (my biggerst position and a 17 baggers now) PRAA, MEQ.to, FFH.to, MTY.to, BAC, AIG, Marvel, DIS, GBT.a.to...  And GEAC, the fist one that i bought in 2001, i made 5x my money on this one.  It was very good for my confidence to start with GEAC.  At this time i start with 5000$ that i take on my credit card.

 

My cimetary of bad stock is well garnish to with some name like FTP.to, FMD, Krispy Cream, RIM, Mega Brand post Fairfax, and  others i dont remember.

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Congratulations to all who have performed well (by their respective definitions).

 

My performance is a measly 3.4% !

 

I am justifying it because of ALS, PKX, Liberty and SHLD -- my largest positions (>70%) have all performed quite badly this year. Maybe I get lucky next year.

 

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nearly flat, > 60% cash & short spy, some unfavorable euro exchange, some lessons from oil & miners

 

overall, a bit frustrating, but when looking back at my historical performance, i underperformed the market mainly due to losses during prior market crisis

 

the true test will come when markets don't cooperate like they have done over the last six years.....

 

regards,

rijk

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Congrats to those who had great years!  I'm up about 26% in my portfolio.  I concentrate on my best ideas with my personal money.  Up 12% to 14% in the family portfolios I manage.  They are more conservative and reasonably diversified.  Fairly happy with the returns but there is definitely room for improvement.

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I've been dreading this thread since October, but I want to acknowledge my failures so I can get better at this or abandon it should they mount up year after year.

 

I'm at -2.68% XIRR for the year.

 

When I look through my portfolio I still like everything, and I'd tack this year up to bad luck. I was up about 18% in September, and then in October my portfolio sank with the market and it never recovered. I have a basket of Korean preferreds that dropped about 20% and is still there. MCR.V has tumbled with the rest of the oil related companies. I bought AIQ the day after it was rumored to be looking for a buyer, and then it promptly tumbled about 25%. Intralot has completely sh*t the bed from a price perspective, but I feel that it's extremely cheap and the new CEO is doing some good things lately. I have a few other stocks that are flat this year, and Fiat and GNCMA have performed well.

 

The major mistake I think I made this year was buying Altius Minerals. It was priced fairly, but I went in expecting them to get Kami financed, which they did not. The mistake was that I bought on speculation, and I want to avoid that. I want to look for solid companies that are mis-priced. Altius was not mis-priced.

 

Good luck to everyone next year and congrats to everyone who did well

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

 

The past couple of years, most of the time I've had a lot of cash (say 50% to 60%) and a few positions that I thought had really good chances of being 5X, 10X, and low chances of being zeroes.  Trading Sears calls this way has worked very well in 2013 and 2014, and the large cash percentage has helped me sleep until it has worked out.

 

I haven't always done it this way, and maybe I won't ever again.  I seriously doubt it's repeatable.

 

Right now I have almost 70% cash.

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Equities were up 21% at year end, total up 14%; the difference is due to high cash holdings throughout the year. Started from scratch just over a year ago. In hindsight, I should have put starting cash directly into a combination of BRK, FFH, and/or an index, and then selectively stock picked over the year, drawing down from these high quality compounders. If I had done that results would be better, buoyed by the direction of the general market, and without taking on excessive risk (IMO). Despite this, happy with results, largest loss of total capital in a single investment was 1.5% and this is my primary objective - preserve capital.

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

Some people talk on here as if they know the outcome of their investments.  I don't know if this is some weird overconfidence, hubris, or if people really can tell that something will do well.  I know from experience that buying very cheap things works, but I never have any idea when or how, that's the mystery and part of the excitement.  I guess to get to 50% plus a year you'd somehow have to 'know' that a stock was going to work in a year.

 

Anyways great returns, congrats.  A few more years like that and there'll be a "Ask whomever" thread with new posters worshiping at your feet.

 

Someone posted earlier that one-year returns aren't terribly instructive. I was one of the 100%+ people last year, and now I'm down 20%. It's the Michael Mauboussin book ("The Success Equation") in action -- individual years exhibit significant luck while longer periods tend to sort out the luck.

 

I suspect that the sense that people knew things were going to work out is purely psychological. Good decisions are all from skill, and bad decisions were all bad luck. Additionally, in a thread like this, the underlying subconscious tendency is to puff oneself up and strut about, and so that adds an additional amount of psychological pressure to seem confident of one's abilities.

 

That said, so long as it doesn't stir up too much envy (which Munger correctly deems the least fun sin), then it's entertaining nonetheless.

 

Down maybe 20% or so.

 

This is interesting... Why? What has happened?

 

Thank you,

 

Gio

 

I actually just did my "loss walk" on investments a week ago, so I have a pretty detailed answer on that one. I had four significant contributors to my loss this year.

 

(1) Some of my companies' stock prices have done a whole lot of nothing this year.

 

(2) I held General Motors warrants going into this year, and while I made the lucky decision to sell a bunch at the beginning of January @ $22 a warrant, I held on to some into and through the recall. I have since built the position back up over the last few weeks. (I sold originally to add capital to another idea.)

 

(3) I held Sears common stock going into this year, which started the year @ $49 a share. I then made the idiotic decision (Read: unforced error) of selling my Land's End to buy more Sears. The smarter thing to do would have been to sell my Sears to buy more Land's End, and I don't think that's ex post rationalization. I think at the time, I could have surmised that Land's End was likely to do well given the characteristics of the business.

 

(4) I picked up Fannie & Freddie preferreds and common stock before the Lamberth decision came down. This one comprises the clear majority of my losses thus far as the preferreds are down maybe 60%+ from my initial cost though I've since added to the preferreds and taken a tax loss on the common stock.

 

So basically, I didn't have anything from (1) to help mask the effect of (2), (3) and (4). This is, of course, the problem of having a concentrated portfolio of around six holdings, there is a certain amount of volatility (I call it the vomit comet) that one needs to be willing to endure.

 

From an analysis point of view, I don't think that I could have predicted (2) since the recall came out of nowhere, and, in fact, I ended up being lucky to sell a portion @ $22 to buy again recently at lower prices. I think that (3) was unambiguously my fault. As for (4), I think it's too soon to tell whether that will ultimately be a loss of capital or not. As I've detailed on the FNMA thread here, I think that there's a pretty good chance that it gets resolved in 2015 @ par.

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How about your portfolio,  not equity of your company?

 

The equity of my company is up 30% this year.

 

Gio

 

+1. This thread is about portfolio returns. Comparing apples with oranges is useless. (Even though 30% is nice!). I'll post mine when I get back from vacation.

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

Some people talk on here as if they know the outcome of their investments.  I don't know if this is some weird overconfidence, hubris, or if people really can tell that something will do well.  I know from experience that buying very cheap things works, but I never have any idea when or how, that's the mystery and part of the excitement.  I guess to get to 50% plus a year you'd somehow have to 'know' that a stock was going to work in a year.

 

Anyways great returns, congrats.  A few more years like that and there'll be a "Ask whomever" thread with new posters worshiping at your feet.

 

I think you could call it partly differences in risk tolerance, but I've run very concentrated for about 7.5 years at 65%. But for instance this year I was a -10% vote. The way I look at it, if I'm not willing to put 50 or 100% of my money in a position I shouldn't be buying it anyway. You can buy a put to protect your downside while avoiding potentially devastating opportunity cost of not being concentrated - again becomes a risk tolerance question. Adding another 10 stocks would certainly not help my total performance and probably add some terrible emotional mistakes, and analysis oversights.  Having read your some of your ideas, you could probably  buy the best 3 or 4 a year with great long-term results if you don't mind being one of the poor votes on the poll every once and awhile.

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

Some people talk on here as if they know the outcome of their investments.  I don't know if this is some weird overconfidence, hubris, or if people really can tell that something will do well.  I know from experience that buying very cheap things works, but I never have any idea when or how, that's the mystery and part of the excitement.  I guess to get to 50% plus a year you'd somehow have to 'know' that a stock was going to work in a year.

 

Anyways great returns, congrats.  A few more years like that and there'll be a "Ask whomever" thread with new posters worshiping at your feet.

 

I think you could call it partly differences in risk tolerance, but I've run very concentrated for about 7.5 years at 65%. But for instance this year I was a -10% vote. The way I look at it, if I'm not willing to put 50 or 100% of my money in a position I shouldn't be buying it anyway. You can buy a put to protect your downside while avoiding potentially devastating opportunity cost of not being concentrated - again becomes a risk tolerance question. Adding another 10 stocks would certainly not help my total performance and probably add some terrible emotional mistakes, and analysis oversights.  Having read your some of your ideas, you could probably  buy the best 3 or 4 a year with great long-term results if you don't mind being one of the poor votes on the poll every once and awhile.

 

Wait, you had a 65% CAGR over 7.5 years? Curious how you achieved that.

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Up 20% this year largely because of BRK.

 

Since 2000, when I started, I have 13.5% CAGR vs ~4.5% for the S & P. Virtually all of this seemingly-brilliant record which can be attributed to just two things:

 

1) Being heavily in BRK in 2000-2002 when it trounced the S & P ( that was so easy)

2) Backing up the truck (and selling BRK to do it) for  AXP and WFC at $10 each in March 2009. That felt easy too, but maybe it was riskier than I realized.

 

Pretty much the rest of what happened these 14 years is noise. I've always been 100% invested, FWIW.

 

Anyway, now I'm miserable. LOL.

 

I feel lost with out having BRK as my perenially undervalued, go-to place, my default position....I'm down to 20% BRK, plus a handful of other things I'm not overly confident in, and 45% cash.

 

Pretty sure my outperformance is coming to a screeching halt now. Just can't muster up confidence in much of anything right now.

 

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

Some people talk on here as if they know the outcome of their investments.  I don't know if this is some weird overconfidence, hubris, or if people really can tell that something will do well.  I know from experience that buying very cheap things works, but I never have any idea when or how, that's the mystery and part of the excitement.  I guess to get to 50% plus a year you'd somehow have to 'know' that a stock was going to work in a year.

 

Anyways great returns, congrats.  A few more years like that and there'll be a "Ask whomever" thread with new posters worshiping at your feet.

 

I think you could call it partly differences in risk tolerance, but I've run very concentrated for about 7.5 years at 65%. But for instance this year I was a -10% vote. The way I look at it, if I'm not willing to put 50 or 100% of my money in a position I shouldn't be buying it anyway. You can buy a put to protect your downside while avoiding potentially devastating opportunity cost of not being concentrated - again becomes a risk tolerance question. Adding another 10 stocks would certainly not help my total performance and probably add some terrible emotional mistakes, and analysis oversights.  Having read your some of your ideas, you could probably  buy the best 3 or 4 a year with great long-term results if you don't mind being one of the poor votes on the poll every once and awhile.

 

Wait, you had a 65% CAGR over 7.5 years? Curious how you achieved that.

 

Yes - first stock I ever bought was mid 2007. Looking back, some of the most successful return-wise stocks were sum of the parts valuation discrepancies with a catalyst. Concentrated - generally one or two stocks at a time, averaging about a one-year holding period. Perhaps a bit cliché, but I have bought things that looked cheap and were doing something that made it more obvious to the market. A few more recent examples: Genworth mortgage insurance book improving, which made the consolidated financials look better last year - that was a double.  Bank of America financials naturally improving after losses subsided. IDT improving after/during the crash - they were closing unprofitable business segments  - made about 5x over two years my average cost. 

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It's been a good but unspectacular year, up 28% (31% for the corporate portfolio and 23% for smaller RSP/retirement account portfolio).

 

What contributed positively:

1) BRK's huge year

2) Apple's run in 2014. I kept buying as it fell down from its 2012 high all the way to its April 2013 low, at which point I bought LEAPS (it appeared cheap to me, but I just got very lucky to be buying the options the day before it hit its lowest point). This was the only time I used leverage in the year (I only use options for these kind of situations, simply because I'm still shy from getting burned a few times before where I happened to be right on the stock, but lost money due to poorly conceived option plays... )

EDIT: 3) Forgot to mention the improvement in the exchange rate. The portfolios are all in USD but the returns get converted into CAD on the broken report that I'm quoting above.

 

What contributed negatively:

1) Extremely poor timing finally moving out of my 5-yr SHLD position, just before it bounced back in a huge fashion

2) Selling out of STRA too quickly to raise cash

3) Small positions in resources such as BTU, RIG and TX (should have sold some even if multiples appeared cheap, not the first time and I suspect not the last I get caught in an economic cycle...) and WTW

 

Fun fact: I decided in late 2012 to do a little experiment with a tiny portfolio (a pension plan from an earlier job that I'm unable to transfer into the others) and to either leave it in cash or invest it in an extremely concentrated fashion in my very best 1 or 2 ideas. This is up 81% this year due to the same factor as described above, still tiny only somewhat less so. I left this out of the above YTD returns (not that it would have made a big difference).

 

By the way, I would like to thank those who take the time to post results despite having a negative year. It is much appreciated and very useful (and also congratulate them on having the ability to be honest with oneself). I'll do my best to follow the example next time it's my turn (I started investing in the fall of 2007, so I've definitely been there before; who said that experience is what you acquire just after needing it?).

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***Updated with Year end results + forex***

 

I have had another strong year as my portfolio returned 23.34% in 2014. (with forex, my portfolio is up 32.62%)  It is important to give the size of your portfolio and I am between $500k-$1mm.  Sanjeev, thank you again for having such a wonderful board and let's hope Premier is able to compound at double digits for many decades to come! 

 

Investing in O&G stocks has been a learning experience and I learned it is outside my circle of competence.  I still hold a decent size position in Sandridge in which I took an absolutely beating.  Ongoing, i am going to stay away from O&G and retail! 

 

Tks,

S

 

 

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As expected a few 30%+ returns and the obligatory 70-80%+ returns.  I know it's great to be on top but just watch, someone is going to roll in here with a 100%+ return.  It never fails, this thread always makes me envious, I'd love to compound at 40-70% a year, but I also realize it's unlikely to be sustainable (for me at least).  I'm not even sure what I'd have to do to double my portfolio in a year, maybe trade options or something.

 

For those of you at 70% or 80% did you use leverage?  If not was your portfolio completely concentrated in one lucky stock, or two lucky stocks for the year?  How repeatable do you think the results are?

 

Some people talk on here as if they know the outcome of their investments.  I don't know if this is some weird overconfidence, hubris, or if people really can tell that something will do well.  I know from experience that buying very cheap things works, but I never have any idea when or how, that's the mystery and part of the excitement.  I guess to get to 50% plus a year you'd somehow have to 'know' that a stock was going to work in a year.

 

Anyways great returns, congrats.  A few more years like that and there'll be a "Ask whomever" thread with new posters worshiping at your feet.

 

I think you could call it partly differences in risk tolerance, but I've run very concentrated for about 7.5 years at 65%. But for instance this year I was a -10% vote. The way I look at it, if I'm not willing to put 50 or 100% of my money in a position I shouldn't be buying it anyway. You can buy a put to protect your downside while avoiding potentially devastating opportunity cost of not being concentrated - again becomes a risk tolerance question. Adding another 10 stocks would certainly not help my total performance and probably add some terrible emotional mistakes, and analysis oversights.  Having read your some of your ideas, you could probably  buy the best 3 or 4 a year with great long-term results if you don't mind being one of the poor votes on the poll every once and awhile.

 

Wait, you had a 65% CAGR over 7.5 years? Curious how you achieved that.

 

Yes - first stock I ever bought was mid 2007. Looking back, some of the most successful return-wise stocks were sum of the parts valuation discrepancies with a catalyst. Concentrated - generally one or two stocks at a time, averaging about a one-year holding period. Perhaps a bit cliché, but I have bought things that looked cheap and were doing something that made it more obvious to the market. A few more recent examples: Genworth mortgage insurance book improving, which made the consolidated financials look better last year - that was a double.  Bank of America financials naturally improving after losses subsided. IDT improving after/during the crash - they were closing unprofitable business segments  - made about 5x over two years my average cost.

 

65% a year for the past 7.5 years is crazy.  If you started with anything more than $20k you're well into the millions now, a rare feat indeed.  Nice job, you've had quite a run.  Do you think the strategy scales at size?

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It's been a good but unspectacular year, up 28% (31% for the corporate portfolio and 23% for smaller RSP/retirement account portfolio).

 

What contributed positively:

1) BRK's huge year

2) Apple's run in 2014. I kept buying as it fell down from its 2012 high all the way to its April 2013 low, at which point I bought LEAPS (it appeared cheap to me, but I just got very lucky to be buying the options the day before it hit its lowest point). This was the only time I used leverage in the year (I only use options for these kind of situations, simply because I'm still shy from getting burned a few times before where I happened to be right on the stock, but lost money due to poorly conceived option plays... )

EDIT: 3) Forgot to mention the improvement in the exchange rate. The portfolios are all in USD but the returns get converted into CAD on the broken report that I'm quoting above.

 

What contributed negatively:

1) Extremely poor timing finally moving out of my 5-yr SHLD position, just before it bounced back in a huge fashion

2) Selling out of STRA too quickly to raise cash

3) Small positions in resources such as BTU, RIG and TX (should have sold some even if multiples appeared cheap, not the first time and I suspect not the last I get caught in an economic cycle...) and WTW

 

Fun fact: I decided in late 2012 to do a little experiment with a tiny portfolio (a pension plan from an earlier job that I'm unable to transfer into the others) and to either leave it in cash or invest it in an extremely concentrated fashion in my very best 1 or 2 ideas. This is up 81% this year due to the same factor as described above, still tiny only somewhat less so. I left this out of the above YTD returns (not that it would have made a big difference).

 

By the way, I would like to thank those who take the time to post results despite having a negative year. It is much appreciated and very useful (and also congratulate them on having the ability to be honest with oneself). I'll do my best to follow the example next time it's my turn (I started investing in the fall of 2007, so I've definitely been there before; who said that experience is what you acquire just after needing it?).

 

Unspectacular year? Just to put your "unspectacular year" in perspective. If you start with 100k with those results you'll be a billionaire in a little over 37 years and if you have 1M then in just 28 years. I already have 37 years, so what do you think about that!

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It's been a good but unspectacular year, up 28% (31% for the corporate portfolio and 23% for smaller RSP/retirement account portfolio).

 

What contributed positively:

1) BRK's huge year

2) Apple's run in 2014. I kept buying as it fell down from its 2012 high all the way to its April 2013 low, at which point I bought LEAPS (it appeared cheap to me, but I just got very lucky to be buying the options the day before it hit its lowest point). This was the only time I used leverage in the year (I only use options for these kind of situations, simply because I'm still shy from getting burned a few times before where I happened to be right on the stock, but lost money due to poorly conceived option plays... )

EDIT: 3) Forgot to mention the improvement in the exchange rate. The portfolios are all in USD but the returns get converted into CAD on the broken report that I'm quoting above.

 

What contributed negatively:

1) Extremely poor timing finally moving out of my 5-yr SHLD position, just before it bounced back in a huge fashion

2) Selling out of STRA too quickly to raise cash

3) Small positions in resources such as BTU, RIG and TX (should have sold some even if multiples appeared cheap, not the first time and I suspect not the last I get caught in an economic cycle...) and WTW

 

Fun fact: I decided in late 2012 to do a little experiment with a tiny portfolio (a pension plan from an earlier job that I'm unable to transfer into the others) and to either leave it in cash or invest it in an extremely concentrated fashion in my very best 1 or 2 ideas. This is up 81% this year due to the same factor as described above, still tiny only somewhat less so. I left this out of the above YTD returns (not that it would have made a big difference).

 

By the way, I would like to thank those who take the time to post results despite having a negative year. It is much appreciated and very useful (and also congratulate them on having the ability to be honest with oneself). I'll do my best to follow the example next time it's my turn (I started investing in the fall of 2007, so I've definitely been there before; who said that experience is what you acquire just after needing it?).

 

Unspectacular year? Just to put your "unspectacular year" in perspective. If you start with 100k with those results you'll be a billionaire in a little over 37 years and if you have 1M then in just 28 years. I already have 37 years, so what do you think about that!

 

Nice to dream, but size becomes an anchor rapidly, an multiply any number by zero just once and...

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