Your returns in 2016

[shalab]

Let us see how the board stacks up this year compared to last here

 

[racemize]

Returns time.  Always pretty fun.  Finally have a good set of numbers compared to the last few years of underperformance.  Including historic returns and current size for moore.

 

Two sets of returns:

 

main portfolio (majority of net worth, 7 figures):

2016: 24%

since 2010: 20% annual vs 14% S&P

 

crazy concentrated/leveraged at times IRA (1/12th of net worth, 6 figures):

2016: 89%

since 2010: 32% annual vs 14% S&P

[Jurgis]

So obviously nobody lost money this year, since the lowest option is <2%...  ???

[Guest cherzeca]

So obviously nobody lost money this year, since the lowest option is <2%...  ???

 

negative is <2%

 

i have a cash component. do i include that in my denominator?

[Jurgis]

So obviously nobody lost money this year, since the lowest option is <2%...  ???

 

negative is <2%

 

Yeah, sure. So why not have an option <0%?

 

What's so magical about 2%? Risk free yield? Even if you held bonds for risk free yield, you would not get 2% in year since you're not holding 1 year bonds...

[DTEJD1997]

Hey all:

 

Looks like I simply could not hit triple digits in my retirement account.  It was up about 95%.

 

Cash account, which is smaller, was up just over 40%.

 

As good as these returns were, they simply don't make up for last years losses.  They bring the accounts back quite a ways...but 2015 was simply the worst year I've ever had...

 

I lost more money in the market than I did working as an attorney!

[Tim Eriksen]

So obviously nobody lost money this year, since the lowest option is <2%...  ???

 

negative is <2%

 

i have a cash component. do i include that in my denominator?

 

Absolutely yes.  Anything else is rather meaningless. 

[frommi]

2%

 

currency +-0% (made money on USD, lost some on JPY)

longs +20%

shorts -18%

 

really fucked up on the short side, but made some mistakes on the long side, too.

On the long side i sold some things too early, like OKE, RGLD, BAC-WT or AHPI.

On the short side i really need to stick to my rules, 10% of the loss were because i started shorting in early March instead of the end of April and i was at -150% net short exposure at times. Next time i will just go to cash if i have the need to be out of the market outside my short-window and i will not go over -100% short exposure (which is scary enough when i think about it). I am now at +-0 on the short side after 3 years without a true bear-market, so no reason for me to give up shorting in the summer for now.

 

Maybe i am not that much wealthier than at the beginning of the year, but i learned a lot. (especially about international netnet investing, which i started in september this year)

[kab60]

Just above 50% while having a large percentage in cash and adding money each month, so IRR would be higher. I pretty much market timed perfectly by coincidence (lots of cash in January) and bottom ticked a bunch of investments (HC2 WFC, IBKR and GNCMA late in the year, BCOR early on). I had no losers nor anything commodity related (except some WPT in a retirement account). I can't complain but I still made a bunch of mistakes and lucked out a couple of times (RELY) while missing a big windfall with DCI.

[whiterose]

I lost more money in the market than I did working as an attorney!

 

how do you lose money working as an attorney?

;- )

[Paarslaars]

40% here, a third of that came from FELP (thanks Picasso!), if only I had the balls to go deeper...

Usually 5-10% in cash.

 

Happy with the results as I was in Sri Lanka for Februari so missed out on the bottom.

Couple of small mistakes this year but nothing really big, which is nice as 2015 kicked my ass (-20%).

 

 

[wachtwoord]

71% for the year versus -17% for 2015 and +24% for both 2013 and 2012.  FELP was the biggest contributor of me too at nearly a third of the return.

[dontdodebt]

45%

 

My first instinct is to tap my own shoulder while I remember all the good timing plays I have done...

 

When I´m really looking closely and look back one year and pretend that I had not touch my portfolio since, I would have done around 60%.

 

This just goes to show that it´s so easy to trick one self that you are doing a great job being very active in your portfolio. My portfolios "risk" may have been smaller with this 45% than 60% but that is too hard to have any real conclusion about.

[DTEJD1997]

I lost more money in the market than I did working as an attorney!

 

how do you lose money working as an attorney?

;- )

 

I should have said that I lost more money in the market than I made working as an attorney.  The net result was that I poorer at the end of the year than at the beginning, DESPITE working hard as an attorney!

 

I would have done better financially by liquidating my positions...goofing off, and delivering pizza a couple of nights a week.

 

[KJP]

~22% in USD, pre-tax

[enoch01]

+30%.  Unless I start contributing more by posting about ideas, this is probably the last time I will post returns.  Pretty lame otherwise.

 

Currently have 80% cash and 20% in Sears common + calls.  I am bored.

[writser]

During the year I collected a lot of obscure stuff: CVR's, shares that are in escrow, unlisted warrants, and receivables from liquidations. All this stuff doesn't show up in my brokerage accounts, which is good as I have to pay a wealth tax. According to my brokerage statements I am up ~38% (in EUR). If I include all receivables and value CVR's at zero I am up approximately 45%.

 

Happy with that as I am a big wuss and run a diversified, conservative (Schloss-like) portfolio. My biggest position never is >10% apart from two corporate actions this year. 5 year CAGR now 23% with low volatility. Running hot! Euro depreciation helped a lot this year.

 

Still lots of things to improve though. As in any year, my results could and should have been better. Investing is so difficult ..

[CorpRaider]

I did well this year.  I'm just going to post some returns for some ETFs I track (for reference and to reflect the value premium's performance this year and perhaps moderate our enthusiasm):

 

RPV    +19.31%

 

VBR    +24.90%

 

DHVW  +11.82%

 

IUSV    +18.47%

 

QVAL    +13.03%

 

DVP    +25.00%

 

FNDB  +16.56%

 

VIG    +11.97%

 

QUAL  +9.21%

[kab60]

During the year I collected a lot of obscure stuff: CVR's, shares that are in escrow, unlisted warrants, and receivables from liquidations. All this stuff doesn't show up in my brokerage accounts, which is good as I have to pay a wealth tax. According to my brokerage statements I am up ~38% (in EUR). If I include all receivables and value CVR's at zero I am up approximately 45%.

 

Happy with that as I am a big wuss and run a diversified, conservative (Schloss-like) portfolio. My biggest position never is >10% apart from two corporate actions this year. 5 year CAGR now 23% with low volatility. Running hot! Euro depreciation helped a lot this year.

 

Still lots of things to improve though. As in any year, my results could and should have been better. Investing is so difficult ..

Congrats. That's very impressive. I read your blog and think what you do seem very solid. I'm not advanced enough (nor have enough time) to do stuff like merger arbs/lots of small workouts, but I figure that'll come in very handy for you when/if there's a crash. Seems much wiser, from my pov, to do what you're doing that trying to market time or short broad indexes due to.macro concerns etc. Really impressive.

[NewbieD]

+44% my account, +41% incl family accounts. If counting some dividend shares not showing in account add 2-3%. All in SEK. 8% less in USD or so? About 100% invested on average, now 90%.

 

CAGR 43,9% since starting 2012-01. Sharpe quote this year was 2,49.

 

Major contributors were Bahnhof, Effnetplattformen, Stendörren, Fortnox, Cherry, Storytel. No big loosers. Timing on selling was good, but results would have been much better if I sold more when moving to new positions instead of 20-30% of position. Partly due to pscyhological reasons getting used to larger positions I think.

 

Developed a bit of a side income/gambling habit on short term trading related to company events. Probably employed about 5% of the capital on average in this type. Don't know exact returns but higher than 40%.

 

Most fun event was attending my first board meeting in Effnetplattformen. Since sold 90% of my shares which turned out to be the big mistake of the year.

[matjone]

what is writser's blog?

[SharperDingaan]

> 100%, and a return of capital by mid 2017

 

PWT, ADV, PD, DB, maturing FTP debentures, and even SAN contributed this year. There were no misses.

There is also a very high likelihood that absent a crash, we'll be able to do it again in 2017.

 

SD

[Picasso]

40% here, a third of that came from FELP (thanks Picasso!), if only I had the balls to go deeper...

Usually 5-10% in cash.

 

Happy with the results as I was in Sri Lanka for Februari so missed out on the bottom.

Couple of small mistakes this year but nothing really big, which is nice as 2015 kicked my ass (-20%).

 

Another member of the FELP mafia, nice!

 

Really impressive results writser.

[thepupil]

Taxable: 37.9%, 10.8% CAGR since May 2013

 

IRA:  35.2%, 23.2% CAGR since Oct 2013

 

Roth: 26.9%, 17.4% CAGR since Oct 2013

 

I made a lot in my taxable from using high leverage and concentration in hedged bonds and a low net basket in select value equities. My IRA's were heavily concentrated in tetragon.

 

nothing special in my book given the concentrated risks I take.

 

Post from last year:

 

2015

Taxable    +1.9%,    4.7%  ann. since June 2013

Roth        +12.4%    13.4% ann. since Oct 2013

IRA          +27.2%    21.0% ann. since Oct 2013

 

Taxable has lots of shorts/options/etc. that have significantly detracted from performance.

 

IRA's are long-only and VERY concentrated

 

pretty much the same story as last year with different names

 

2014

 

Roth IRA: +17.9% (100% invested, long only, 3-5 stocks at a time)

 

IRA        : +20.3% (100% invested, long only, 3-5 stocks at a time)

 

Taxable : +0.12% (50-80% net exposure long/short, substantial options & lottery tickets component)

 

Reasons for disappointing year in taxable: short UVE (-430 bps), short XBI (-540 bps); these two shorts took me to the woodshed. Also had significant options/lotto ticket burn of 400 or so bps. Longs did fine.  At least all the stuff on which I lost money was in my taxable account.

[Viking]

14% return for the year; currently 65% cash and 35% invested (WFC, FFH, GIL and a sprinkling of forestry stocks). The Trump win was the big event for me; my portfolio was down about 5% before the US election as I was very heavy with US financial stocks.