Anachostic

Now currently -15%

I've been wondering lately, I've been doing this retirement savings thing for about 10 years, saving 10-15% and I currently have a little less than a year's wages in value. The loss I'm reporting must be income and dividends.

So, I haven't really gone anywhere in 10 years. Sure I have about 30 more years to go (yeah, that's gonna happen), but it sure is disappointing seeing where I'm at now.

moeronn

But this is where it "should" get more exciting, since theoretically, your gains should start outpacing your contributions in the near future.

I should be reaching that level soon I was actually closer to that happening about 3 years ago

imj0257

iTrader: (1)

29.71% 2nd quarter return

FiftyFive

16.7% YTD, not bad.

Anachostic

Maybe because it's easier to get a 30% rise on a price of $4 than it is on $18?

Dr. Colorado

QFT. I'd like to know what the past 12 month performance is on his portfolio. My vanguard is up >100K YTD LOL. Unfortunately, it's still down more than that the past 12 months -17% for past 12 months, still better than S&P so I won't fire my FA yet hehe.

imj0257

iTrader: (1)

yea dont worry about it the past 12 month performance is

Dr. Colorado

I feel your pain brotha. Oh well, it's only a loss when we actually liquidate our assets. Right now I just look at it as a paper loss. Fortunately, we both are still young and decades away from actually needing our IRA funds

dallison

mrs dallisons' last 1/4 is up 5% and 13% for the year

Will Y.

Up about 1% - from 2005...

Dr. Colorado

F-ck might as well get my F430 now since I'll prolly only be up 1% when I turn 40 LOL

moeronn

I'm just happy I'm finally in the black overall on my 401k. Just under 1% since inception

wndrlst

With all the economic gloom % doom of late, just thought I'd share that I checked in on my 401k last night. It hasn't received any new funds since I left my job in July, but its value is up nearly 30%. No complaints here.

Will Y.

OK, better now-- up a little over 4% from 2004-2005.
Hey, it's better than the interest on bank accounts and CDs!

RK69

If you're in stocks and the market is down, you'll most likely be down. If you're in bonds you could be up. A mix of the 2 will change less drastically (both up or down) as the market.

NSXNEXT

iTrader: (2)

How's everyone recovering? I did some major re-allocation this year.

Updates: Up 9.6% for the year. I have a decent chunk in my company stock which has helped tremendously.

Since 10/08 I've tripled my 401K (that includes my bi-monthly contributions)
Retirement can't come quick enough.

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

Last month certainly helped. I was at 5.93% YTD through the end of September. I'm up to 10.97% YTD through October.

Pete2010

Sept/Oct were great to bring it back. At this point only one of my funds i'm still down about 5% on, all the rest I'm back to at least even on (from some reallocation).

mrsteve

iTrader: (1)

2nd quarter was a loss for me. Everyone else too? My funds are pretty agressive (90% of them are classified as growth funds).

gatrhumpy

iTrader: (1)

Up 10% for the year.

Bearcat94

9.6% for the year. 3% last month (October).


I've recovered what was lost when the market/economy tanked a couple years ago (I think I previously peaked around late July or Aug 2008), plus a few percent.

So, over two years, a few percent up.

Will Y.

My main 401K is up 11.96% for the year-to-date, and up 18.8% from 1/1/09.

However, it is only up about 1.1% from 1/1/08, and up 4.3% since 2004.

In other words, I'm just leaving everything alone and ignoring the ups and downs.

Dr. Colorado

Yep, up >15% for year but >5% over past 5 years. I'll take it though, nice to be in black and not red.

I rolled over my discretionary portion into Roth since they got rid of the salary ceiling this year. I took a hit on taxes but the opportunity for that investment to grow income tax free for the next 30 years until I retire was too good to pass up.

LaCostaRacer

^ Great thoughts on the ROTH conversion idea. I track my IRAs more than 401Ks since I actively manage the IRAs myself. Today's YTD performance is 11.5% for the IRA and a paltry 5.8% for my ROTH. My ROTH isn't big enough 9.3K currently to do a lot with but I'm going to convert 20K to it this year to have more money to work with.

Most people are going to see their 5 year performance numbers as BAD because 2008 was a market killer. I know nobody that actually made money in 08 when the SP500 was down 38.5%. I felt pretty fortunate taking a <10% hit in my managed accounts back then.

Anyway you have to compare your results against the SP500 and even a negative return that is better than -16.7% is going to outperform the market. You guys that were better than -16.7% from Nov/2007 levels should feel good that you outperformed 80% of the other professional money managers who can't beat the SP500.

The 5 year performance of my ROTH has been good with a 50+% return since I opened in 2005 with 4K and then a subsequent 2007 injection of 2K. It's now at 9.3K. The IRA's 3 year performance (didn't have records of this sort until 2007) is 2.7% against an SP500 performance of -16.7% from 11/16/07 to now, so +2.7% isn't bad for this market interval that declined 16.7%.

doopstr

My net worth has almost fully recovered, and that includes the hit that my house took.

Pete2010

I'm only 6.5% away on my main investment account. But my house increased 5% from purchase based on a recent inspection for my refi. Made most of it back by re-allocating during the downtimes.

LaCostaRacer

I just changed my 401K allocation to ZERO % tonight from the 16% I have been doing for for the last 20 years. I have pondered the last few days on this decision and think I would do it even if my employer matched which they don't. I'm not taking any money out of anything, but just electing not to add any more new money to it.

For me the reason is pretty clear: I can invest the contribution amount better in silver or other commodities and outperform my limited 401K selections (with tax considerations factored) going out the next 10 years or longer. Perhaps, next year I'll have bragging rights similar to the 58% gain I have made since last November doing this technique with cash stagnating at 1% in a house rental bank account holding a tenant's deposit and some maintenance reserves.

(With the current FED/budget policies, I don't see how we can't have high inflation which will make 401K amounts much less significant than hard commodities going forward. I see the current price of silver doubling and possibly tripling from current values in the next few years. Some people may interpret this as bubble-talk and we'll just have to see in 3 years time which perspective winds up being correct.)

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

I got my year end statement. My rate of return was 5.6%.
Not too bad in this economy. I guess I'm in the right things at the moment.
I was down the last few years.

Dr. Colorado

I am completing my Roth conversion for the discretionary portion of my 401K by 12/31/10. I met with my corporate attorney yesterday and she informed me that I will be able to convert future profit sharing component to Roth as well in addition to the discretionary component which is already coming out of my paycheck after tax.

That obviates the tax benefits of investing pre-tax $$ into the P/S plan. Also at least in my home state, when one liquidates the P/S plan at retirement, no state income tax is paid.

dmikon

This is exactly why most investors' returns are significantly lower than market returns.

LaCostaRacer

^ yes we will see who outperforms the market going forward the next year and more importantly 10 years down the road. I have 26 years worth of $$ locked up in 401K/IRAs so this is a hedge using NEW MONEY which should greatly outperform my Fidelity funds.

Only 20% of the mutual funds can match the SP500 let alone beat it by 6x. My current Fidelity performance is now 14.5% in a 10% market this year so this mix is performing pretty well, but still my Panda's beat that by 2x which was my worst performing commodity.

I'll check back next year and share my results then like I did with the rental account this year: 67% on COMEX 100oz silver bars and 30% for .25oz Gold Pandas.

LaCostaRacer

^^ For Fidelity investors only: you may want to checkout the Midcap & International fund families since those are kicking butt on the others: Spartan Extended Market Index Fund Investor Class was my best performer at almost 24% YTD gain and Columbia Acorn International Fund Class Z is good for almost 19%. The other two funds were < 10% and were Eaton Vance Large Cap Value CL A & Fidelity International Discovery Fund. I have slim pickings in my 401K but these aren't too bad either.

The usual problem though is this year's winners tend to be next year's losers so perhaps the under-performing funds will be next year's winners. I don't shuffle funds much, but that's what I have noticed over the years. I was fortunate to have picked some good funds for the majority of the account holdings and stay put on current ratios. I think international out-performance is a Megatrend that cannot be ignored and will continue to be heavily invested in those areas.

dmikon

First off, you can't compare all mutual funds' performance with that of the S&P 500. An international small cap fund, for example, is an apples to oranges comparison to the S&P 500, which of course if large cap domestic.

Second, if you know that about 80% of fund managers cannot beat their respective index, why do you think you can? Do you know something they don't?

Statistically, the top funds are very likely to become under-performers, while the poor funds are likely to stay as under-performers. It is highly unlikely that a bad fund will become good - even less likely than a good fund staying good.

Regarding international, did you think international was a 'megatrend that cannot be ignored' back in 2000? I hope you're not basing this conclusion based on its recent performance.

LaCostaRacer

The SP500 is a classic performance comparison for a money manager in which 80% cannot match. I agree that international funds are different than SP500- International funds like to compare to other indices but I quote SP500 for simplicity reasons only.

Well, because I do year in and year out. I'm a small fish and can swim much faster and move quicker than many money managers can. I mostly buy stocks or i-shares and don't buy mutual funds for my accounts. It's easier being a small fish. I know lots of people (and money managers) that can't match my performance, so I must be doing something right.

I base my performance against SP500 because it's easier and well tracked by people in general. So today the SP500 was down .13% and my accounts were up .25% for a .38% out-performance. Last week the SP500 was up 3% and my accounts were up 3.25%. Last year the SP500 was up 23.45% and my accounts were up 29% with one account up 67%. Even in 2008, I managed to outperformed the SP500 by losing only 9% against the -38.5% for SP500. I have been doing this stuff for 20 years and have only lost to the SP500 2 times and that was 12 years ago. This year, I'm on track for a double-SP500 performance for a projected 14% gain against a projected SP500 7% gain, so the race is on for the next few weeks to wrap up this year.


You can check the performance of some of the major funds and see this mini trend in place. It's very unusual to see the same fund continuously outperform the SP500 by looking at a 3, 5, or 10 year performance cross-referenced to SP500. Although not impossible, it's hard to stay a top performer as a money manager all the time because performance attracts attention which increases size. A lot of this is based on size- smaller funds are easier to manage than massive funds. This is just an observation and can be backed up with publications like Investor's Business Daily.


I think International is a Megatrend because countries like India, China, and even Japan will outperform US, and Europe going forward the next 10-20 years.

dmikon

Classic by what definition? You cannot compare funds that invest in different market segments than the S&P 500 to the S&P 500. It's a wrong comparison, period.

Being a small fish has its advantages, but it is not necessarily better. Mutual fund managers at many firms have access to very sophisticated technical analysis, leading industry insight, potential insider connections, and generally much more pronounced ties to Wall Street than the average person. Now, I have no idea what information you have access to, but chances are you know less than they do, even though you're managing far smaller assets.

That aside, once again, unless you invest strictly in large cap US stocks, you cannot compare your performance against the S&P 500, it is simply meaningless. For example, suppose you took a poorly performing domestic small cap value fund, which consistently underperformed the MSCI small cap value index by 3 points. Is it a good fund? I am sure we can agree it is not. However, compared to the S&P 500 it did great. So, if you bought this junk fund and held it for the past ten years, you can also proclaim that you must be doing something right because you have beaten the S&P 500 for the past decade.

Money managers do this all the time. "We deliver results: our emerging markets fund has beaten the S&P 500 for the past 15 years!" "Yeah, and how did it do against a comparable emerging markets index?"

Construct a balanced, globally diversified, cheap investment portfolio and then compare your investments to its performance. Then you can perhaps claim out-performance.

I am glad you know this for a fact. In the 80's people said the same about Japan. Just curious by how much will they outperform the US, and for exactly how long? Also, when should I invest in the US again, seeing as how we will be an under-performer for decade(s) to come? You have a great crystal ball, I wish I had one too.

LaCostaRacer

^dmikon- I think you're missing an important point of the SP500 as it relates to an individual investor. I don't really care about MSCI small cap value indexes or anything other than the SP500. I am not a money manager who runs a mutual fund, so I don't really care about small cap .vs. large cap .vs. value. What I do is manage my own money and I want to outperform the market- and I happen to define my market as SP500- perhaps you will define yours as the MSCI small cap index instead. It doesn't really matter as long as you're consistent in your comparisons over time and you pick a worthy opponent index to base your comparison to.

I'm a personal investor who wants a decent return on my money. I compare against the SP500 because 80% of ALL mutual funds can't beat that anyway so why pick a different index? It seems like the SP500 is a pretty good benchmark to compare any fund to. I could easily invest in IVV and outperform most mutual funds just by doing this. However, I like to compete with the SP500 for the fun of it and potential gains that I seem to achieve on a regular basis.

It doesn't really matter what fund family because if I want top performance out of 100K or whatever amount of money I manage, I'll pick the best means of doing that. I just happen to use the SP500 as my benchmark. I don't think is is a difficult concept is it?

Anyway, please show me a fund by giving a ticker that has outperformed the SP500 for 15 years. I would like to verify this feet indeed. I'm sure there are a few, but these are a SMALL fraction of all funds available and probably have some hefty management fees as well that might offset any improvements.

dmikon

You're missing an important point as it relates to performance comparisons. You're free to do as you wish, but just realize you're comparing apples to oranges. If that's fine with you, by all means have at it.

Let me illustrate how your comparison is invalid and how you can make it valid. Suppose you're investing this $100k. You decide to invest $30,000 into a couple small companies; $30,000 into Apple, and Goldman; $20,000 into gold and silver; and the remaining $20,000 into short-term bonds. This is all just an example, of course. If you compare the total performance of this portfolio to the S&P 500, you are (to reiterate one more time) comparing apples to oranges. The correct comparison would be to compare this portfolio's performance to a portfolio composed of 30% small cap index, 30% S&P 500, 20% precious metals, and 20% short term bond index. If you beat it after costs, then you have indeed beat 'the market'.

What I said earlier was just an example of false comparisons that I see very often advertised by mutual funds. I personally do not invest in active mutual funds so I am not the best person to ask about top performing funds. I really don't care which ones are the best because I invest in index funds only.

LaCostaRacer

^OK just took the bait before leaving for work...

I am not comparing apples to oranges at all. I'm comparing my 100K and how it performs in total compared to a widely followed benchmark. I could put the entire amount into IVV and outperform most money managers. Or I could diversify and do something like you suggest with stocks, bonds, etc. I still can compare my current account value against the SP500 performance with some easy math. My point all along is that it's actually hard to beat the SP500 on a consistent basis.

So with these clarifications, how many of your index funds outperform the SP500 which you can track with IVV? Again you do not provide specifics and only generalizations. I really don't care about advertisements because it's actual/current performance that matters.

You can go to stockcharts.com and easily do a performance check with a ticker format like this <ticker1>:<ticker2> (e.g. SLV:IVV). You can do the same thing using any Stock ticker too. For your composite comparison, you can also compare the ratio of growth in your 100K portfolio to the ratio of growth in the SP500 and have a very accurate benchmark comparison too. For example, the SP500 started the year at 1115.1. You only need to know your portfolio's year start value and its current value to do this comparison.

So you can gauge your 100k's performance and feel pretty good if you are outperforming the SP500 or IVV for charting purposes. Shoot I just heard a CNBC blurb today indicating that the majority of money managers weren't beating the SP500 this year so I am not offbase at all in the performance metric- it is hardly a new concept.

Money management isn't like High school Basketball where you want to compare schools by size. Money management gauged by PERFORMANCE. If you're a hedge fund manager, I guarantee you that you are looking at the SP500 as a benchmark and not some obscure bond index, small money manager index? or ???.

ok going to work

FiftyFive

~14% this year so far

dmikon

What is the S&P 500? It is an index that represents the aggregate the 500 large, commonly traded stocks of US companies. When you invest in individual securities, or in non-index mutual funds, you are investing in a subset of the underlying asset class. For example, if you pick five companies, say Kraft, Apple, Google, ConocoPhillips, JP Morgan, you are picking a subset of the S&P 500. If you want to measure if you're beating the market, you compare your subset against the aggregate benchmark that is your picks' superset. If your picks beat the benchmark, you beat the market.

If I invest in Cree, GLD, and Activision Blizzard, and then compare the performance of those to the S&P 500, I am (again) comparing apples to oranges. The benchmarks that contain these investments is NOT the S&P 500, and therefore it is not a valid comparison.

You earlier mentioned that you do not compare foreign investments with the S&P 500. Why not? S&P 500 is a widely used benchmark, so you can compare your portfolio full of foreign investments vs the S&P 500. If not, then why do you not draw the line between other market segments?

Specifics of what? I am not trying to argue about the performance of your portfolio, or whether mine is doing better, or will do better in the future. I am simply arguing about the fact that you measure your performance against the wrong benchmark.

Key thing is your gauge has to apply to what you're measuring. You talk about other indexes as if they're some obscure crazy thing that a few oddballs use for performance. The S&P themselves has many other indexes besides the 500, for example the S&P 400 for mid-caps, and the S&P 600 for small-caps. FTSE is widely used for international, Russell and Wilshire for many domestics, Barclays for bonds, etc. There is no reason why a hedge fund manager cannot compare performance correctly. It might be very difficult due to constant flux of asset allocations, as well as sheer trading volume, but it is possible.

One last note to sum it up: if you claim you beat the market, it implies that your hand-picked subset of investments available in 'the market' beat the market average. If these investments are not a subset of 'the market' (S&P 500 as you claim), how can you claim you beat it? You're comparing your portfolio to an average of stocks that you don't even invest in. If that makes sense to you, I don't know what else to tell you.