[Poll & Discussion] CofB&F members' returns for 2025 [Pre tax, and after fees, commision etc.]

[lnofeisone]

On 1/3/2026 at 7:19 PM, villainx said:

I'm solidly at around the SP500 range +~17%.  Has been uphill battle past few years as one 30% position has been largely underperforming, this year up 8%.  It's also mostly in my taxable account so ... I'm kinda stuck unless I pay the tax piper.   Not making excuses, just really not sure how to fix this other than really execute with the remainder of the portfolio.

I had one like this - VET. Good story but market isn't seeing things the way I see it. Mostly around pricing the risk that never comes (Russia selling gas back to Europe). I parted with the position and redeployed. It was more challenging that I thought it would be but it had to be done. 

[flesh]

23.4% across all accounts. 

 

Only interesting thing is cumulatively I only owned stocks for 4 out of 12 months for the year. Earned the 4% on cash while owning nothing. Spent maybe 20 hours for the year doing anything related to stocks. 

 

Traded brk 3 x, frfhf 2x, joe 2x, qqq 1x.  Maybe 5% of the port was leaps, 1x. Early april. 

 

On another note, my school teacher girlfriend from barcelona is up 149% in her first five years investing, in her accounts, I've never sold a single share. I find this interesting as this is how I would invest if I didn't have the dislike of extended holding periods. Getting this return for her was very easy. Also, this was without owning any tech until april of 25 which is now a 15% position. 

 

2020, purchased brk 175, again around 205. 

2021 purchased brk on a dip, can't remember price. 

2022 purchased brk on a dip. price was 295 iirc, no more brk purchases. 

2023 nothing, she was saving

2024 nothing, she was saving

april 25, bought frfhf, joe, qqq early april. 3-5% position in frfhf and joe, 15% qqq. 

 

It's interesting to me it's this easy to do nearly 150% in 5 years by adding to conservative stuff on dips. 

 

Wouldn't it be nice if someone came into your life after you'd been saving in savings accounts for a decade and

said hey do this, then you make 150% in five years on 95% of your net worth doing nothing, lol. c'est la vie. 

 

She still doesn't believe she'll end up with millions with basic compounding from here.

 

 

[thepupil]

Overall made about 20%. 

 

Since tracking consolidated number of all accounts (2017), I'm slightly ahead of SPY. 

 

Since May 2013, my consolidated IBKR accounts, which are the bulk of myh investments, have made  15%/yr on a time weighted basis and 16% IRR. The S&P 500 did 13.9% (with better tax efficiency and no effort). 

 

Since August 2016, my Fidelity accounts have done 12.5% TWR and 19% IRR, 2% per year worse than SPY but likely better on IRR basis. 

 

Despite only outperforming slightly, I felt good about performance this year as it was driven by a timely big addition to FMBL and a takeout of ALEX shortly after i added more. this was a year where my non-REITs (international indices, banks, some asian holdcos) really shone and greatly increased my REIT purchasing power...REITs were the worst performing asset class of the year. 

 

I don't feel great about next year though and don't really love my portfolio at the moment. you've had huge rallies in ex-US indices (all my 401k and about 17% of controlled accounts) , a big re-rating in some other stuff and I'm just not too excited about things. REITs are kind of in the dumps, but i don't have super high conviction in any of them. 

 

My Trump Derangement syndrome cost me 500-600 bps of hedging cost as i was absolutely trouncing the market in April and lost a fair amount on hedges as the market recovered. But this, along with holding winners in tax free accounts made the year pretty tax efficient. 

 

2025   +20%

2024: +15%

2023: +18%

2022: +4.5%

2021: +55%

2020:  +2%

2019: +20%

2018: -2%

2017:  +15%

 

 

 

Quote

Overall made about 15%.

 

Since tracking a consolidated number (2017) of all accounts, I've made +14.9%/yr while the S&P 500 has made 14.7% / year with greater tax efficiency and lower effort for SPY. 

 

Since May 2013, my consolidated IBKR accounts which are the bulk of my investments have made 14.4%/yr on a time weighted basis and 15.7% IRR, vs 13.5% for the S&P 500 (again with better tax efficiency and no effort favoring the index

 

Since August 2016, my fidelity accounts have made 11.3%/yr on a time weighted basis vs the market's 14.4%. for the time frame that this account underperformed it was small so money weighted would be a lot better but don't have that data. 

 

Regarding 2024, I'd repeat 2023 and say that I deserved to underperform this year. I haven't owned the market's best performing businesses (fundamentally) and haven't found high conviction in a lot of stuff. Have been running overly diversified and low-ish risk and shouldn't expect to keep up in a year like last. I expect to continue to underperform should the environment remain similar. 

 

I'm 12 or so years into this and it's unclear that I've added any value, but on an absolute basis, I'm satisfied. I've done a little better than the index owning very little tech, but no points for difficulty. 

 

my investment accounts are about 50% of my net worth, with 32% or so being in a trust which i don't control but receive distributions (primarily invested in indices), and the remainder in home equity. 

 

2024: +15%

2023: +18%

2022: +4.5%

2021: +55%

2020:  +2%

2019: +20%

2018: -2%

2017:  +15%

 

 

Edited January 5 by thepupil

[Milu]

32 minutes ago, flesh said:

2020, purchased brk 175, again around 205. 

2021 purchased brk on a dip, can't remember price. 

2022 purchased brk on a dip. price was 295 iirc, no more brk purchases. 

2023 nothing, she was saving

2024 nothing, she was saving

april 25, bought frfhf, joe, qqq early april. 3-5% position in frfhf and joe, 15% qqq. 

this kind of approach can be quite fruitful when starting to invest, I did it myself for the first 5-10 years. Do nothing and just save money when the market is on a bull run, buy great companies during the inevitable bear markets, do nothing and save for a few more years, buy on the next bear market, etc.

 

It stops working once the capital gets so large that the savings piece becomes such a small piece of the overall pie that it becomes mostly irrelevant which is where I am at these days.

[compoundvalue]

~+35.4% across accounts. Calculating returns has gotten more complicated with multiple accounts and significant inflows/outflows, using the same methodology across years, so at least apples to apples. I’m gravitating towards increasingly concentrated portfolio, which likely means a meaningful drawdown at some point, but I think that’s the right way for me to play the game. For most of the year, 5 stocks or fewer (the same names) made up ~90–95% of the portfolio.

 

Historical

2025: ~+35.4%

2024: ~+84.6%

2023: ~+24.5%

2022: ~-17.6%

2021: ~+39%
2020:~-5%
2019*: N/A

2018*: N/A
2017: ~+42.1%
2016: ~+26%

 

 

* Had a job that wouldn’t allow me trade during 2018-2019

[UK]

3 hours ago, compoundvalue said:

I’m gravitating towards increasingly concentrated portfolio, which likely means a meaningful drawdown at some point, but I think that’s the right way for me to play the game. For most of the year, 5 stocks or fewer (the same names) made up ~90–95% of the portfolio.

 

Great results! Mind if I ask what these 5 positions are:)?

[Dynamic]

32.5% USD-denominated return which I always use to answer the poll. 23.4% GBP-denominated as my home currency.

 

Since the end of 2015 I've used SP500TR as my benchmark and the index I'd probably concentrate on tracking if my stock-picking didn't work, so I will continue to answer this poll in USD. Also GBP has been a bit of a wild ride since 2016's 30% decline after the Brexit vote, and even tariff chaos hasn't affected USD that badly.

 

2016 was when I resumed seriously investing and we seriously began putting in new funds, trying to live on one income and invest the other and targeting early retirement when my spouse and I began tracking our portfolio returns more accurately to see if we should be using index funds instead. Before that I had been fairly passive in holding mostly Berkshire Hathaway since 2003 and a few individual UK investments prior to that when I hadn't totally got my current understanding of margin of safety and my investment philosophy sorted out.

 

My 10 years of serious moderately active investing is now complete and we're about 128% ahead of the SP500TR index on an average annual basis, meaning 9.9% CAGR outperformance. Using a different method based on running my ledgers since April 2003, we're about 122% ahead of where we'd have been if we invested in SP500TR with no fees every time we put money in or withdrew money from our investment accounts, beating that index by 4.4% annualized XIRR over that time, so most of our outperformance has been after 2015 and one or two early missteps are dwarfed by later gains. (I essentially run XIRR on the alternative-universe cashflows if we'd invested entirely in SP500TR instead and compare that to our real XIRR)

 

We actually underperformed the FTSE100 Total Return Index and FT All Share Total Return in GBP by a small margin in 2025, but over the last 10 years we're outperforming by 17.6% and 19.6% respectively up on a annualised basis, more than 400% over the full decade.

 

Cal Year	USD gain	outperf vs SP500 TR	pre tax GBP gain	Lowball value USD gain
2016	24.2%	12.2%	54.2%	19.1%
2017	24.8%	3.0%	14.1%	12.7%
2018	25.3%	29.7%	33.0%	49.9%
2019	18.0%	-13.5%	13.6%	1.9%
2020	-3.4%	-21.8%	-6.0%	32.4%
2021	79.6%	50.9%	81.4%	34.2%
2022	24.1%	42.2%	39.8%	38.3%
2023	9.8%	-16.5%	3.9%	22.0%
2024	26.7%	1.7%	28.6%	3.6%
2025	32.5%	14.6%	23.4%	40.1%
cagr	24.7%	9.9%	26.4%	24.5%

 

The rightmost column is my estimate of lowball portfolio valuation in the event of a bear market which I track approximately. For Berkshire holdings, lowball is about 1.2x BVPS, for many quality compounder holdings it's about 8.5% earnings yield, and for Fairfax it's about 6.5x EPS, which is possibly excessively pessimistic. Generally I have used this to get a more fundamentals-focused market-neutral idea of funds we could probably rely on getting our hands on. I used to project our retirement for the year when we could reach our target income with a withdrawal rate of 3.5% or 4.5% of the lowball portfolio valuation, which means considerably lower withdrawal rate against portfolio market value in normal times, more like 2.5-3.5%, in line with typical "safe withdrawal rates". I projected future real CAGR of lowball value conservatively in today's currency to strip out inflation and in most scenarios I used a lower real return rate during retirement assumed to equal the safe withdrawal rate. We could project being able to retire indefinitely when our required income was less than that percentage of our "lowball portfolio valuation".

 

We retired with a couple of months of 2021 remaining with just over 5% of lowball valuation meeting our target income, prepared to tighten our belts or get some work if the market crashed, but hoping to continue outperformance for a few years, which did happen and despite increasing with inflation our withdrawal rate is now modest enough that we should have no problem sustaining our standard of living indefinitely and being able to travel as often as we do now. I can imagine that a few more years of outperformance would allow us to increase our annual income above inflation and perhaps have some more expensive travel experiences or meet occasional large expenditures without affecting our feeling of financial security.

Edited February 1 by Dynamic
Corrected LowBall 2025 gain and LowBall CAGR having found an error in my calculations

[UK]

5 hours ago, Dynamic said:

 

32.5% USD-denominated return which I always use to answer the poll. 23.4% GBP-denominated as my home currency.

 

Since the end of 2015 I've used SP500TR as my benchmark and the index I'd probably concentrate on tracking if my stock-picking didn't work, so I will continue to answer this poll in USD. Also GBP has been a bit of a wild ride since 2016's 30% decline after the Brexit vote, and even tariff chaos hasn't affected USD that badly.

 

2016 was when I resumed seriously investing and we seriously began putting in new funds, trying to live on one income and invest the other and targeting early retirement when my spouse and I began tracking our portfolio returns more accurately to see if we should be using index funds instead. Before that I had been fairly passive in holding mostly Berkshire Hathaway since 2003 and a few individual UK investments prior to that when I hadn't totally got my current understanding of margin of safety and my investment philosophy sorted out.

 

My 10 years of serious moderately active investing is now complete and we're about 128% ahead of the SP500TR index on an average annual basis, meaning 9.9% CAGR outperformance. Using a different method based on running my ledgers since April 2003, we're about 122% ahead of where we'd have been if we invested in SP500TR with no fees every time we put money in or withdrew money from our investment accounts, beating that index by 4.4% annualized XIRR over that time, so most of our outperformance has been after 2015 and one or two early missteps are dwarfed by later gains. (I essentially run XIRR on the alternative-universe cashflows if we'd invested entirely in SP500TR instead and compare that to our real XIRR)

 

We actually underperformed the FTSE100 Total Return Index and FT All Share Total Return in GBP by a small margin in 2025, but over the last 10 years we're outperforming by 17.6% and 19.6% respectively up on a annualised basis, more than 400% over the full decade.

 

 

Cal Year	USD gain	outperf vs SP500 TR	pre tax GBP gain	Lowball value USD gain
2016	24.2%	12.2%	54.2%	19.1%
2017	24.8%	3.0%	14.1%	12.7%
2018	25.3%	29.7%	33.0%	49.9%
2019	18.0%	-13.5%	13.6%	1.9%
2020	-3.4%	-21.8%	-6.0%	32.4%
2021	79.6%	50.9%	81.4%	34.2%
2022	24.1%	42.2%	39.8%	38.3%
2023	9.8%	-16.5%	3.9%	22.0%
2024	26.7%	1.7%	28.6%	3.6%
2025	32.5%	14.6%	23.4%	14.1%
cagr	24.7%	9.9%	26.4%	21.9%

 

The rightmost column is my estimate of lowball portfolio valuation in the event of a bear market which I track approximately. For Berkshire holdings, lowball is about 1.2x BVPS, for many quality compounder holdings it's about 8.5% earnings yield, and for Fairfax it's about 6.5x EPS, which is possibly excessively pessimistic. Generally I have used this to get a more fundamentals-focused market-neutral idea of funds we could probably rely on getting our hands on. I used to project our retirement for the year when we could reach our target income with a withdrawal rate of 3.5% or 4.5% of the lowball portfolio valuation, which means considerably lower withdrawal rate against portfolio market value in normal times, more like 2.5-3.5%, in line with typical "safe withdrawal rates". I projected future real CAGR of lowball value conservatively in today's currency to strip out inflation and in most scenarios I used a lower real return rate during retirement assumed to equal the safe withdrawal rate. We could project being able to retire indefinitely when our required income was less than that percentage of our "lowball portfolio valuation".

 

We retired with a couple of months of 2021 remaining with just over 5% of lowball valuation meeting our target income, prepared to tighten our belts or get some work if the market crashed, but hoping to continue outperformance for a few years, which did happen and despite increasing with inflation our withdrawal rate is now modest enough that we should have no problem sustaining our standard of living indefinitely and being able to travel as often as we do now. I can imagine that a few more years of outperformance would allow us to increase our annual income above inflation and perhaps have some more expensive travel experiences or meet occasional large expenditures without affecting our feeling of financial security.

 

That was interesting to read, thanks for sharing! Great results! 

[John Hjorth]

Time for a friendly BUMP