2011 results

[SmallCap]

So isn't this the first time in over 50 years that we have had a negative stock market return in the third year of a presidents term?

[beerbaron]

Will do my IRR this weekend. I expect a few points above my relative indexes but not a homerun year.

 

BeerBaron

[Guest]

With dividends reinvested, the market was up this year.

[alertmeipp]

probably down 20%+. :-\

 

[twacowfca]

Up over 40% overall,  thanks to our huge overweight in LRE, including long term, nonrecourse, total return derrivatives.  The remainder of the portfolio is down about 7%.  :(  Outperformance eventually regresses, often with great force.  :(

[alwaysinvert]

My portfolio: -1.7%

 

Index (SIXPRX): -13,6%

[Liberty]

Been close to even lately, but for a long time I was down double digits.

[Valuebo]

+8,45% against benchmark that is down over 20%.

 

€/$ helped a lot but I was also fully invested since the +- mid august and I made a lot of changes in my portfolio in the last few months. Overall, I can't complain. Still fully invested and a big chunck in financials.

[Guest]

Do any of you guys calculate your networth? Hope I'm not the only one.  :P

[enoch01]

Up 11%.  My glaring mistake this year was Olympus.

[rijk]

+12%, about half coming from special situations & luckily sold SD & LUK timely....

 

regards

rijk

[Viking]

I was up about 1% this year. Key learning: stay away from statistically cheap stocks and stick with the best of class. Overall, I am not disappointed as I was very cautious (for a second year) sitting on very large cash balances for most of the year (currently cash = 75%). Lots of good lessons...

[keerthiprasad]

Down about 30%, should've gotten out of sears and a small cap gold producer (unreliable management).  My first real down year in awhile.  I think I keep shooting for just dirt cheap and need to learn to find good management at the same time. 

[racemize]

Irr of 12.8%, with an underlying gain of 4.9%. This was my first full year of investing, and I think it went pretty well.  Incidentally, does everyone use irr to measure performance?

[bmichaud]

Up 7.5% net of hypothetical 1%/20% fees with a 6% hurdle. Averaged 60% net exposure for the year with top 80% of holdings averaging $40B in market cap (average market cap cited in order to make "adjusting for size" easier for those who care). Net exposure on a "beta basis" much lower than 60%. Benchmark is the Dow Jones Total Return index, DWCFT, which was up 1.03% for the year. 

[racemize]

  On 12/31/2011 at 2:31 PM, stahleyp said:

Do any of you guys calculate your networth? Hope I'm not the only one.  :P

 

I have a spreadsheet that calculates assets-liabilities daily. I also have it keep track of the change of the value (derivative) per year to see how my slope is doing.

[beerbaron]

Just finished calculating.

 

4% IRR for 2011.

Not bad considering the TSX total return was -9% and S&P500 was +2%.

 

It could have been much worse considering I was 100% invested when Europe crisis happened.

 

BeerBaron

[gordoffh]

down 3 % - sold half of SD in April bought back in gradually and the late surge was a nice christmas present - down primarily because of MFC  and other financials - have bought MFC all year now averaged in at 13 in for the long haul collecting dividends - can't say that overly satisified since I was up 20 % in April however down 3 % much better than 6 weeks ago - FFH was a nice counter to falling markets and I sold ove rtime to buy what I hope were decent purchases of cheaper stocks -

[Guest]

  On 12/31/2011 at 3:50 PM, racemize said:

  Quote

Do any of you guys calculate your networth? Hope I'm not the only one.  :P

 

I have a spreadsheet that calculates assets-liabilities daily. I also have it keep track of the change of the value (derivative) per year to see how my slope is doing.

 

Dude, that is impressive! I only calculate mine monthly.

 

Down about 4%

[beerbaron]

  On 12/31/2011 at 4:15 PM, peter_burke_ceo said:

the dow was up over 8% and the s & p was up over 2%.

 

Nobody uses the DOW as a comparison metric anymore  ;)

[Packer16]

Up 8.5% this year.  Last few weeks pulled me into positive territory.  Fully invested all year.  How do you calculate IRR versus total return?

 

Packer

[racemize]

  On 12/31/2011 at 4:45 PM, Packer16 said:

Up 8.5% this year.  Last few weeks pulled me into positive territory.  Fully invested all year.  How do you calculate IRR versus total return?

 

Packer

 

I use the xirr function, which uses cash inflows and outflows with dates to give you a time weighted return--it is the rate that would be applied to all the money while it was present to achieve the provided results.

[VAL9000]

IRR of 37.07% and an underlying gain of 14.24%.  IRR is heavily skewed due to large portfolio influxes mid-year, which turned out to be good timing for such events.

 

Smartest moves:

- Took a large position in USG at $7.99 in August.

- Took a medium position in PBN at $10.63 in late August.

 

Dumbest moves:

- Bought a very small speculative position in TSE:PLS, which is down 78%.

- Added lots of SSW at $17.58 after it moved down from $20 in May.

 

Luckiest events:

- SSW announced a tender offer for shares that brought my largest holding up by 30% in the last month of the year.

- I ended up investing in RAIL, watching it drop, investing more, watching it rise, and trading out at 20% over 9 months.  The way this whole thing developed is interesting and I will post on it in detail shortly.

 

Best lesson:

PLS is the obvious flub.  I look at the end of year performance and focus mostly on what the heck I was thinking with that play.  What I came up with is:

- I was greedy because I saw a company that used to be worth a lot and was now worth very little.

- I thought they could outrun their financial problems with an asset sale (that never materialized).

- I did very little analysis.  The business model seemed good (I still believe this), but I completely ignored the financial state of the company.

- My big bet was on the housing recovery, which would trickle down to PLS being a profitable business again.  I made the same bet with USG.  The difference is that I used much more rigour with USG, ensuring they would have years to ride out a housing recovery, whereas PLS's time horizon is really only 6-9 months (which is coming to an end).

- I justified my speculation with "it's not a lot of money" which is a ridiculous and stupid way to rationalize an investment.

 

I was looking for an easy win and I was punished accordingly.  Good lesson and I hope never to repeat this mistake.

 

[ourkid8]

My 2011 rate of return was a strong 14%.  It was primary driven by my core concentrated positions: Philip Morris International, CN Rail, Kraft and my timely purchase of Inter Pipeline when the US lost their tripple A credit score which has performed exceedingly well.  (Those 4 positions are slightly above 40% of my portfolio)

 

My losers so far have been ATPG (I sold out at a loss), Hanfeng Evergreen Inc (I solt out at a loss), Frontier Communications, Chou Asia, Chou Associates, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. 

 

Being extremely concentrated has helped me this year and thank god my positions have held up extremely well!  :) 

 

S

[Guest Hester]

Up 4% versus index that's down 75%. (I decided to index myself to RIMM)

 

So my relative performance has been truly outstanding.