[Poll & Discussion] CofB&F members' returns for 2024 [Pre tax, and after fees, commisions etc.]

[gary17]

I have all the contributors here to thank... Sanjeev for having this forum.  Viking & many others on fairfax, CSU, etc.  I focus on running a 50 person engineering company in BC and investing in the last two years has been completely , more or less 'passive'... ie just piggybacking on ideas of others; occasional evening or weekend reading of materials, no big diving into anything.    The return this year has been extraordinary, well above average, and now contributing much more to my wealth than the day job...   Basket of CSU/FFH/tech , and started to get into a few Japanese (been to Japan few times the last year).   I am too young to retire, but certainly this unexpected turn in the last few years has made me think more about this new 'freedom' to do anything, consider options about what I should do next , etc.  It's a truly first world problem, but certainly has occupied my mind a lot these days !   

 

Happy new year everyone- here’s hoping 2025 will be as phenomenal as 2024!

Edited Wednesday at 04:36 PM by gary17

[Gamecock-YT]

35.56%, Made two large investments this year that came up trumps. Managed to bottom-tick ALS.TO in February after putting about 25% of my net worth into it over 12 days as the price was blowing out. This was after an iron ore mine’s pre-feasibility study (on which they own a royalty) showed a lower-than-expected IRR. However, if you factored in the spot iron ore price at the time, the IRR improved significantly. Those last batches of purchases are up 50% today.

 

The other big winner was TBRG, which hit a 52-week high yesterday. I'm sitting on a 131% gain on it. Was loading up when it was trading around ~6.2x EBITDA while an investment fund was blowing out of it. Wish I had bought more, as it’s currently trading at ~9.3x.

 

Also picked up some FRMO right before TPL and crypto went on a run—more luck than anything, but it was trading below 1x NAV when I was buying. Those are now up 30%.

 

The big losers for the year were GXE.TO (and some other small O&G investments) and SIRI.

 

2024: 35.56%

2023: 0.40%

2022: -3.75%

2021: 19.9%

2020: 12.0%

2019: 33.0%

2018: -15.5%

2017: 35.0%

2016: 17.3%

[John Hjorth]

31 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

 

It's actually a very good question, Blake [ @Blake Hampton ],

 

Joel Stevens - Austin Value Capital [January 5^th 2017] : Essay : Measuring Returns.

 

Joel Stevens is our fellow CofB&F member @racemize.

 

Edit :

 

Off topic :

 

Austin Value Capital : Misc. Writings [May be worth your time, if you haven't visited the website before.],

Austin Value Capital : Misc. Resources [Ditto].

Edited Wednesday at 04:58 PM by John Hjorth
Added two links to Austin Value Capital website

[Milu]

18 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

I have a google sheet and use the XIRR functionality which seems to to best way of tracking IRR on a series of irregular deposits and withdrawals. I have my funds at a number of different brokerages so I consolidate things into one sheet. I pull in all the live stock prices into the sheet so everything updates in real time, then any time I add some funds to the portfolio or take funds out i'll add a new line to a deposits/withdrawals tab.

 

It's quite rare that I withdraw funds as I am still well off retirement age, and seeing as I have two young kids I don't have much cash lying around monthly to add to the portfolio, so might only have a couple of deposits/withdrawals per year.

 

I probably don't need to bother tracking any returns really as I should have more than enough at retirement age, it's more for me to get some metrics and see if I am actually a decent investor or would be better off sticking things in an S&P 500 index fund. So far I am coming out ahead (9 years of tracking things), so jury is still out on whether it's luck or skill.

Edited Wednesday at 04:42 PM by Milu

[Milu]

2 hours ago, james22 said:

Sixty, fourth year of retirement, entirely dependent upon portfolio for income: > 120% 

That's great, congrats! I guess you didn't get the memo to put most of your money in bonds and low risk stocks and get your high single digit retirement returns 

 

I'd say not too many retired 60 year olds knocking out 100%+ returns on what I assume is a decent nest egg. Look forward to see how the returns progress over the coming years, I assume you are quite concentrated in certain positions so you'll be dealing with lots of volatility. Should be a fun ride!

[Viking]

2024 was another very good year, +40.8%. What were the drivers?

1. Fairfax - large core position and also taking advantage of two sell offs (tactical trades in Feb and Aug)
   • Yes, Fairfax has delivered another amazing year. Nuts.
2. Broad based index funds (VOO, VO and XIC)
   • My decision to shift a significant portion of my net worth to index funds in Q4 2023 certainly paid off in 2024 given how strong financial markets were. 
3. Tactical trades
   • These worked out pretty well - not surprising given how strong financial markets were... 'a rising tide lifts all boats...'

At year end, here is where my portfolio sits:

• Fairfax = 33%
• Broad based index funds = 46% (mostly VOO, XIC with small amounts of VO, XEQT)
• Tactical trades = 20% (Fairfax India, Telus, Canfor, Saputo, Suncor)
  • Most of my tactical stuff was bought very late in the year. Fairfax India briefly went to $15 and I got a few shares (not as much as I wanted). Telus and Saputo look like they got hit hard with tax loss selling. Canfor got hit over concerns over high mortgage rates in the US. And Suncor got hit, along with all the oil companies - oil/gas is a pretty hated sector. 
• Cash = 1%
  • I normally like to have a cash weighting of 15% to 20%. So I will be looking to bump this up in the new year (selling down my tactical holdings - which are all in tax-free accounts). 

Edited Wednesday at 06:30 PM by Viking

[SharperDingaan]

2 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

 

You should be using time-weighted return (TWR), which will be the return that most brokers publish; if using an MS Excel spreadsheet you should be using the XIRR function. 

 

SD

[TwoCitiesCapital]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:14 PM, TwoCitiesCapital said:

2015: ~(20)

2016: 24.7

2017: 25.9

2018: (14.1)

2019: 25.5

2020: (4.80)

2021: 18.8

2022: (19.66)

2023: 38.6

 

Fairfax, Exor, Eurobank, Fairfax India, Rolls Royce, and Bitcoin predominantly responsible for results. 

 

My positive outperformance in equities/debt in 2022 was overshadowed by a heavy allocation to crypto which did miserably.

In 2023, it's the drag from a heavy fixed income allocation that's being overshadowed as crypto bull market rages. 

 

Bonds provided a nice base from which to build returns from this year. I'm still thinking they may be a large driver of my returns in 2024. 

 

 

2015: ~(20)

2016: 24.7

2017: 25.9

2018: (14.1)

2019: 25.5

2020: (4.80)

2021: 18.8

2022: (19.66)

2023: 38.6

2024: 24.4

 

Fairfax was probably my primary equity contributor as my largest equity position and it being up ~50% this year. The year-end pop in Fannie/Freddie preferred helped too which I've lightened up on by selling ~25% of the position and rolling it into other names that were beaten up during the year. Options trading - primarily covered calls and the occasional cash secured put spread - added another ~1% to returns for the year. 

 

The biggest "anchor" on my performance was my fixed income accounts (accounting for 40-50% of portfolio at any given time), but providing a floor return of ~5-6% which I deem acceptable given my views on the uncertain path of the USD/inflation and the response I expect from equities to it. 

The rocket fuel was provided by Bitcoin which basically carried my portfolio this year (and last). 

 

Most of my other equity positions were modestly down, flat, or modestly up less than my bond funds returned so it was a pretty boring year outside of Fairfax and BTC. 

Edited Wednesday at 06:59 PM by TwoCitiesCapital

[John Hjorth]

Wikipedia : Time Weighted Return.

[Eng12345]

26.5% TWR 

 

Mainly driven by two of my smallest positions - SMNEY.DE and TPC. 

 

Dragged by SAVE in January of 24 and dragged by JOE. 

 

I'm not upset with matching SP500 when I was ~35% cash for most of the year out of pure laziness. 

Edited Wednesday at 09:30 PM by Eng12345

[TwoCitiesCapital]

2 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

 

I have a spreadsheet. I take down the values of ALL of my portfolios every time there is a cash-flow (withdrawal/deposit) and then adjust for the cash flow and determine the return over that period. 

 

On 12/31, I can simply link all of the returns via multiplication to determine the compounded return for the year . This would be a Time Weighted Return calculation. Typically, its only appropriate when you DON'T control the timing of the cash flows. I use it as the majority of the cash flows into my portfolio in any given year tend to be bi-weekly contributions to my 401k and HSAs which I have limited control over the timing. 

 

I may change to a money weighted return for 2025 as I'm vastly de-emphasizing my 401k/HSAs contributions for the next year or two to focus on building a base of taxable/accessible savings and WILL control the timing of the cash flows more. 

[Castanza]

~16% across IRAs and Brokerage account 

 

Started the year down after a foolish (hindsight) play on SAVE. I believe I was down ~12% last January. Emotion got the best of me and I leaned into a play that carried more risk than I was willing to admit. Lesson learned. Add airlines to sectors I avoid (energy, airlines, retail brands, and most of the time banks). 
 

Fairfax was a large boon to my portfolio this year. I had less churn this year and worked on build in out some positions. Picked up a few new positions towards the end of the year with the dip. Overall I am happy with my return and still think I sleep more sound with my current holdings than if I were holding SPY. I Looking forward to the new year. Thanks to everyone on this board for all of their research, insights, professionalism, camaraderie, time and willingness to share ideas and teach us younger guys! 
 

To another prosperous 2025 in health and wealth! 
 

 

[backtothebeach]

year	return	years	CAGR
2014	9.7%	1	9.7%
2015	-10.1%	2	-0.7%
2016	23.5%	3	6.8%
2017	-6.5%	4	3.3%
2018	-25.6%	5	-3.2%
2019	47.3%	6	3.8%
2020	40.8%	7	8.4%
2021	81.9%	8	15.7%
2022	10.4%	9	15.1%
2023	74.4%	10	19.9%
2024	55.9%	11	22.8%

 

It's been 11 years since I decided to put all my funds in the same IB account and try to compound it. Taking more leverage risk than most (like being 200% long Berkshire), also selling puts like crazy. The first 5 years were negative 3.2% CAGR, due to rather stupid mistakes that ate up all the Berkshire profits. (Pro tip: Don't sell large amount of SPY calls thinking there is no way SPY will not drop below a certain level again, then refuse to admit the mistake and stay net short in a bull market, lol).

 

Late 2018 I finally wisened up and did what I knew to be correct all along: Buy compounders when they are cheap, then do nothing. I still had a lot of leverage, and kept selling puts, but generally on more solid firms like Berkshire, MKL, BAM. Also got better at getting out of dubious firms at the first or second sign of trouble, having been burned by CBI/MDR in previous years.

 

The last 6 years have been crazy. I would not believe those numbers if someone told me it was their performance, but it is true. Being leveraged made me super sensitive to risk and I went to "only" 90% long (10% cash) in February 2020, when Covid started to spill over to Italy. I did not know what was going to happen, but I knew there was too much risk on the horizon.

 

Last year my returns were dominated by Fairfax' crazy performance, my port was 75-80% in Fairfax throughout the year. Halfway through the year I started to hedge with trading and ultimately staying short more and more December SPY $550 calls. That cost me 3-4% performance in the end, but lessened volatility.

 

It is unlikely I will ever have a run like the last 6 years again, and I repositioned my port two weeks ago, removing leverage, and to "not risk what I have to make more money I don't need". The end goal is to make the port boring AF so I don't have to watch it all the time.

 

At the start of 2024 I began withdrawing monthly for living expenses, the equivalent of a 2.5% annual withdrawal rate. After last year's return withdrawing the same amount is only a 1.5% withdrawal rate. My plan is to take a page from @Gregmal and @dealraker and become a more "passive" investor, focusing on quality of life rather than being obsessed with stocks and the markets all the time. Let the compounding do its magic. It's going to be difficult because what's more entertaining than flicking back and forth between watchlists and watching realtime quotes, trying to find the right moment to roll short puts, and seeing your port fluctuating for hours on end lol.

[Junior R]

2 hours ago, backtothebeach said:

year	return	years	CAGR
2014	9.7%	1	9.7%
2015	-10.1%	2	-0.7%
2016	23.5%	3	6.8%
2017	-6.5%	4	3.3%
2018	-25.6%	5	-3.2%
2019	47.3%	6	3.8%
2020	40.8%	7	8.4%
2021	81.9%	8	15.7%
2022	10.4%	9	15.1%
2023	74.4%	10	19.9%
2024	55.9%	11	22.8%

 

It's been 11 years since I decided to put all my funds in the same IB account and try to compound it. Taking more leverage risk than most (like being 200% long Berkshire), also selling puts like crazy. The first 5 years were negative 3.2% CAGR, due to rather stupid mistakes that ate up all the Berkshire profits. (Pro tip: Don't sell large amount of SPY calls thinking there is no way SPY will not drop below a certain level again, then refuse to admit the mistake and stay net short in a bull market, lol).

 

Late 2018 I finally wisened up and did what I knew to be correct all along: Buy compounders when they are cheap, then do nothing. I still had a lot of leverage, and kept selling puts, but generally on more solid firms like Berkshire, MKL, BAM. Also got better at getting out of dubious firms at the first or second sign of trouble, having been burned by CBI/MDR in previous years.

 

The last 6 years have been crazy. I would not believe those numbers if someone told me it was their performance, but it is true. Being leveraged made me super sensitive to risk and I went to "only" 90% long (10% cash) in February 2020, when Covid started to spill over to Italy. I did not know what was going to happen, but I knew there was too much risk on the horizon.

 

Last year my returns were dominated by Fairfax' crazy performance, my port was 75-80% in Fairfax throughout the year. Halfway through the year I started to hedge with trading and ultimately staying short more and more December SPY $550 calls. That cost me 3-4% performance in the end, but lessened volatility.

 

It is unlikely I will ever have a run like the last 6 years again, and I repositioned my port two weeks ago, removing leverage, and to "not risk what I have to make more money I don't need". The end goal is to make the port boring AF so I don't have to watch it all the time.

 

At the start of 2024 I began withdrawing monthly for living expenses, the equivalent of a 2.5% annual withdrawal rate. After last year's return withdrawing the same amount is only a 1.5% withdrawal rate. My plan is to take a page from @Gregmal and @dealraker and become a more "passive" investor, focusing on quality of life rather than being obsessed with stocks and the markets all the time. Let the compounding do its magic. It's going to be difficult because what's more entertaining than flicking back and forth between watchlists and watching realtime quotes, trying to find the right moment to roll short puts, and seeing your port fluctuating for hours on end lol.

is the 1.5/2.5 withdrawal rate from dividends or from profits 

[backtothebeach]

21 minutes ago, Junior R said:

is the 1.5/2.5 withdrawal rate from dividends or from profits 

These annual withdrawal rates are only 0.125-0.2’% per month. Between selling puts or covered calls and trading around I always had this kind of cash laying around. Not many dividends.

Also, since IB pays such good interest on portfolio cash, I sometimes converted long stock into short deep in the money puts and had lots of cash for weeks or months until those puts got assigned. 0.125% monthly withdrawal is so little that it doesn’t really move the needle.

[benchmark]

21 minutes ago, backtothebeach said:

 

Also, since IB pays such good interest on portfolio cash, I sometimes converted long stock into short deep in the money puts and had lots of cash for weeks or months until those puts got assigned.

does this mean that you sell out the position and then buy equal amount deep in the money put? is this in a tax-free account?

[dealraker]

 

Berkshire and AJG are 4/5ths of my stuff; Lowes, Norfolk Southern, Erie, Brookfield(s), Brown and Brown, Mondelez, Coke, Pepsi, Markel and Fairfax take me well over 90%.

 

I'm guessing I'm up a bit over 20% this year.  

 

I bought Erie after 1994, added some to Fairfax a few times in recent years, messed with Brookfield, and bought Cadbury (eventually Mondelez) in 2000.   Other than that no significant portfolio changes since 1994.  Lowe's, Fairfax, and the brokers began in the 1993-94 period; Coke and Pepsi go back to 1975.  Markel began at the IPO 1987 or 88- can't remember, family worked there and the desire to buy was widespread among those who were knowledgeable financially.

 

Norfolk Southern was a 1/27th (27 grandchildren, me the youngest) of grandmother's inheritance linked to the family's North Carolina Railroad stock.  Much bigger railroad today.  I held North Carolina Railroad for years until the State of NC bought us minority shareholders out at a bargain to continue the el-cheapo lease to Norfolk.

 

I think business, not stocks.  Hate trends and hot sectors...although I have owned Google for some (guessing) 12-15 years...can't remember.  Sold MSFT to buy land.  And I do now trade some in my 401K!  (Which I love doing!)

 

Probably wrote something in error, but I do that constantly and can't figure out how to do better.  

 

Oh...by the way, of the stocks I've bought related to the posters I follow here on COBF (their rants...not mine!)?  I think I'm doing about 35% annual a year with those!

.  

Edited Thursday at 12:54 PM by dealraker
added the word significant to be far more accurate

[Gregmal]

18 hours ago, Paarslaars said:

am assuming you did not trade in/out of MSGS/E when they peaked?

Didn’t see this originally, but yea, didn’t trade them. MSGS came through. MSGE in fact I added like 30% to an already piggish position last 6-7 weeks or so. 

[Gregmal]

4 hours ago, backtothebeach said:

My plan is to take a page from @Gregmal and @dealraker and become a more "passive" investor, focusing on quality of life rather than being obsessed with stocks and the markets all the time

Yup it’s definitely a choice and frankly I still look at the evidence and trading even half assed the returns are north of 50% on those things on average, but at some point you have to live. The incremental returns to me aren’t worth the time I have to put in. And I feel I’ve narrowed the criteria for core long term holdings so much so that trading around the core will be more than adequate. 
 

Time will tell whether I’m taking things for granted or not but after putting together a near life changing run over the last half decade, on top of already being in good shape, I just wanna enjoy the things you work to enjoy. The kids, my hobbies and a young good looking wife lol. Doing 15% or 40% isn’t really changing much for me. But everyone’s different. In late 2021 I just decided I wanted to simplify across the board. @dealrakerwas actually hugely inspirational for me. And the most obvious part of that was avoiding having 50 pages of trade logs a year while simultaneously avoiding, as @LearningMachinewould always say, partnering with Uncle Sam in a way that resulted in frequently writing checks.

[villainx]

11 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

 

I use Schwab and there's portfolio performance tab.  Your brokerage might have same?

 

 

[Martian]

13 hours ago, Blake Hampton said:

I'm curious how you all go about determining your returns. Do you go into your brokerage statements and calculate the nitty-gritty gains from the investments themselves, or do you simply look at the growth from your overall wealth, say what your equity would be on a balance sheet? One seems a lot simpler than the other, but it also accounts for outside influences such as savings, etc.

This yearly poll is usually for the brokerage returns. Here is a simple example of how to calculate the returns. You can add or subtract the taxes and other things you want.

 

 

[Red Lion]

32.3% for my main account in 2024. 

[Red Lion]

16 hours ago, SharperDingaan said:

As expected, we're in the high teens; mostly because of two big capital repatriations that went into additional houses.

Are the houses investments and are you counting those as part of your portfolio return? 

 

Just curious because I've also been putting a lot of capital into real estate with an acquisition binge in 2023 and a lot of capital improvements in 2024. 

 

I'd have a meaningfully larger net worth right now if I'd just stayed in my stock ideas since 2023 and 2024 have been great years in the markets, but I feel like it could have gone the other way as well. I'm pretty comfortable with my large allocation to direct real estate investment right now. I've got about 85% of my net worth at cost invested in private investment real estate, 25% in a closely held business, and 20% investment accounts stocks/tbills. The 30% is all mortgage debt against some of the investment real estate. 

 

If we were to see a scenario where mortgage rates decline and I see a lot of opportunities in the public markets (or real estate market) I think I'd still be in a position to take a fair amount of additional leverage to load up on investments, and also refinance my mortgages. Unlike many with real estate investments, I only have some higher rate mortgages taken out recently which can be refinanced accretively (or even paid off)

[Kizion]

12 hours ago, backtothebeach said:

Taking more leverage risk than most (like being 200% long Berkshire), also selling puts like crazy.

 

How do you take leverage into account in your returns? I also have used quite some margin at the beginning of this year, and I'm wondering how to consider it for my annual return calculation. At the moment, I'm including my leverage to calculate my returns, in other words, I consider my leverage as my own money for my return calculation. 

 

I'm "only" having a return of 20% in 2024 ("only", as it's quite low compared to the other posts here and if you compare it to the S&P500). 

Overall, I'm quite happy with past year performance as I should just compare this yearly performance to my long term goal of 8% return and I think I've become again a bit better investor compared to 1/1/2024. Still 2 decades to compound my knowledge to retirement  

 

Main lesson of 2024 is to just buy stocks I want to keep for a couple of years, not just for a quick trade (if the latter is the case, I just need to buy options).

I didn't buy any companies that I regret, but I'm just too impatient and take my losses and profits too eagerly. In BE we pay 0,35% of the transaction value, and if you're like me, that's a high amount at the end of the year. My result could have been 6% better by just reducing my transactions by 90%. I'm thinking to limit my yearly transactions to 20. 

Edited Thursday at 10:04 AM by Kizion

[Milu]

Another datapoint that could be helpful is how does your portfolio fit as a percentage of total net worth? For example some people could have a business, house or other asset that comprise of the vast majority of their net worth.
 

If person A has a fully paid off house worth $1m, a business worth $2m, and then have a ‘portfolio’ of stocks worth 500k that they trade in on the side I’d look at things slightly differently than person B with a $3.5m stock portfolio and no other assets. A 50% return for person a would be $250k and represent an increase of less than 10% on their starting net worth, whereas for person B it’s an increase of $1.75m. Person A could likely take a lot more risk and possibly look like a superstar if it pays off due to the fact that any mistakes would not damage their net worth too much, whereas person B could blow up after a few bad years.