2020 Returns

[Deleted]

SP500 did 18% in 2020 (incl. dividends)

My overall investment portfolio did 22.0%. Owning MSFT and AAPL helped. 

Thanks to Chang and others on the forum. 

This is first time in 10 years that my portfolio has matched or beaten SP500. 

[Chahta]

I appears you may not be using any bond funds. I was about 1/2 of that (11%) using bond OEFs at roughly 50/50.

[Deleted]

I am 13 years from retirement. I made a shift during 2020 to ditch all bonds and moved (partly) to Large Cap growth. Where ever I remained in Value (Like BRK.B, SCHD) or Cash dragged down my returns. I still own some bonds via Wellington.

[acksurf]

I came in at ~15%. I have 3 primary long term accounts; 1 @ 23%; 1 @ 18%; and the 3rd was dismal. I had some bad timing as I moved and invested a decent chunk of $ just as COVID hit. And I had several investments that went down far more than what I would have expected so sold and then bought into something more conservative that didn't come back as quickly. All in all a pretty good year despite the March crash. Wish I had more in technology/growth and MATFX...My general goal is to match the SP 500 and/or total market index with less volatility.

Edit:  There's no way I can succinctly answer how I got to my 15% return; I tinkered way too much because of unfortunate timing/black box funds.  My portfolio was generally about 70/20/10 (equity, bond, other).  My portfolio is pretty vanilla:  lots of VTI, balanced funds, overweight technology and health; underweight foreign.  Like poster below I got crushed by several funds that I didn't really understand.  So no more crazy black box funds for me.  The "other" category went down and will probably be at 0 this year.

[jcserc]

I think mentioning our 2020 return is completely meaningless in the absence of context on how that return was achieved and/or lessons learned, etc.

Personally, I made 15%. I am "partially" happy with my return. First of all, If you had asked me at the end of March, I would have never forecasted ending a year with a positive return...so, just for that, I am happy. Also, considering my average allocation throughout the year was about 65/35, 15% slightly beats that mix.

In relative terms, my main detractor this year was my bond asset selection and the CEF I held at the beginning of the year. As it happens, my worst month was March, both in absolute and relative terms. I lost pretty much the same as the SPX even though I was not invested 100% in equity. The reasons: First, stupid selection of bond funds. I grew complacent and held assets like IOFAX as part of my bond allocation, ignoring the obvious risks of holding such instruments. Fortunately, before it did hit bottom, I sold it and replaced it with an equity fund when SPX was about 33% down. The other main detractor was PCI. Although I had reduced my CEFs in 2018 and 2019 (from a high of 30% of PV),  I was still holding a 10% position on PCI and, as we know, they did not completely recover.

So, I did learn my lessons. I will not be buying again funds like IOFAX. My bond components are meant to lower the volatility of the overall portfolio and reduce risk. Since I am not "trading" these instruments, it makes no sense to me to hold funds like those. Today, my bond exposure is given mostly by my balanced funds and munis on my taxable account.

I also learned this year that CEFs like PDI, PCI, etc. are poor investments on the way down. They behave relatively similar to SPX on the way up, but fall way harder during turbulent times. Then, why not just hold an index fund? Keep in mind I invest for TR, not income.

My assets that contributed the most in 2020: I hold 5 individual stocks, and they all did better than the market...AMZN, TMUS, MSFT, GOOGL...heck, even DIS finished the year strong.

Best,

JC

[chang]

I agree with previous posters on "black boxes". Lesson that shouldn't have had to be learned: if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Having said that ....... I am still holding PMZIX. It did not fare too badly in 2020, and it is something of a diversifier in my FI side. That's the "black boxiest" fund I own.

[FD1000]

I didn't realize you already started this thread

2020 was by far my best ever risk/adjusted returns. I made 19.55% with SD=2.3
For 3 years it was 11.21% annually with SD=2.3 and far better than any dream I had.

Just like you I'm amazed by the above numbers. They are taken from Schwab where I have 95% of my money.
So, how did I do it?

I'm retired since 2018 with strict rules: 1) Try to make 6% annually 2) Never lose 3% from any last top 3) Be positive annually 4) Be fully invested at 99+% unless risk is elevated. 5) Use primarily bonds OEFs + momentum, trade risky stuff(stocks/ETFs/CEFs/GLD/whatever) hours-days

2018-Q4/2018: SP500 was down about 20%, my portfolio -0.9%

2020-Q1/2020: SP500 was down over 30%, my portfolio was up. I sold at the end of 02/2020 over 90% and the remainder days later. Made several trades and bought back at the end of 03/2020.

It gets better, I write down every Sat my weekly results, I had only one losing week of -0.3% in 2020.

[nromsted]

I've been retired for 14 years now. I have a pretty broad definition of what my portfolio is. The only things I don't track within my portfolio are real estate and insurance cash value. About 3/4 of the portfolio is in mutual funds, at about 55%/45% stock/bond split, and about 70% of that is held in taxable accounts. I will begin withdrawing from retirement accounts in a couple years.

With that, I was happy to have had a total return of 11.5% in 2020.

My best performers were VHCAX at 22.9% and FBALX at 22.4%. My worst performer was VMNVX at -3.9%.

Besides buying some modest amounts in March 2020, my best investment decision was a swap between VUSUX (long Treasury) with VWEAX (high yield corp) that I had set up by buying VUSUX in May 2018 when it was priced at $11.43/share. I bought that with VWEAX that was priced at $5.73/share. I patiently waited until March 23, 2020 and swapped back, selling VUSUX at $15.66/share and buying VWEAX at $4.80/share. I only wish I'd put more at risk into that swap plan in 2018.

[stats]

I used to track our portfolio several different ways. For example, would track just stocks, I would compare it to several indices eg 500 index, mid cap index etc. I don’t do that anymore. I noticed we have more assets now than last Jan 1 despite selling some assets. that is the extent of my tracking. We reached “enough” a few years ago and enough is good enough. No need to check any further

Stats

[rhythmmethod]

Well, it looks like I'm belong in the cellar. I was ~10.5% with roughly the same allocation as VWIAX. I have to admit when March hit and all my gig contracts were canceled until further notice and I saw BND trading like a penny stock it messed up my mind. I sold some at the worst possible time. I made some good buys but sold and took profits too soon in retrospect. I recovered pretty well late summer and fall, however. I always try to learn from the previous year.
My take-aways are hold investments you believe in so when things go south you can feel good about adding to them. Hold some hedge. For me it's a simple EDV. Even if I don't use it, it makes me feel less anxious and know I've got some cavalry if needed. I've simplified my portfolio and created holdings that match my chess game going forward. The core and explore is a good match for me.

May we all do better in 2021 with investments and life.

[FD1000]

Just for clearance, I never track our expenses, bills, investments on my own, except write down weekly results for several funds + portfolio results which I use for momentum trading and takes about 5 minute.  In reality, I can drop this too because I setup much bigger lists per category in M* and they give me performance from 1 day to 3 years.

I don't believe in slices and analyzing categories + busy work and never used Excel or other tool for that including for tax purposes.
Schwab+Fidelity do this for me.  I know several credit cards and banks do this but I never look at this.

The main thing that I care about investments are TOTAL PORTFOLIO RETURNS + SD (wish they had Sharpe+Sortino,Max Draw).  It's interesting and gratifying when one stock/fund made a killing but totals matter more  :-)

[wannabechef]

I wish I could chalk this up to how smart and savvy I am but at least a good portion of it is dumb luck and can be credited to sitting tight during the downturn in March of 2020 and doing next to nothing but slowly adding to my existing positions, with some minor shuffling. I was lucky enough to hold a 49% allocation of my portfolio in PRNHX (T Rowe New Horizons) which somehow did phenomenal last year, and a 23% total allocation in POGRX (PRIMECAP Odyssey Growth) which didn't do as well as the market as a whole but I am thinking may fare better in 2021. I know this may look crazy from an allocation standpoint, I am willing to be talked out of it with reasonable arguments. I am young and tolerant to market swings. My main stinker was holding onto FMIJX until recently which I dumped for another T Rowe Global fund PRGSX.

I managed to walk away +34.56% for the year altogether with PRNHX doing most of the leg work. Mind you I was close to 90% equities (technically 100% in retirement accounts). If, for a moment, you think I am super smart let me set you straight by confessing that I held Oakmark (OAKMX) until March 3rd, which I traded for VDIGX (VGuard Dividend Growth). Technically I would have fared better with the Oakmark fund but I have no regrets dumping this fund.

I plan to not get used to returns like this, but must admit it felt good to walk away from 2020 fairly unscathed financially.

[chang]

Nice moves wannabechef. I owned Oakmark and FMI funds in the past; not any more. I have come to believe that "value shops" are more hype than substance. Remember Third Avenue's motto ("Safe and Cheap")? The results speak for themselves. Have you seen the beautiful picture of San Francisco harbor on the web page of Dodge and Cox? I decided I don't want to pay their rent anymore. (Although I'm still holding DODIX!)

[wannabechef]

Thanks chang(chang). It seems more and more that timing is the key with many value funds, if you get in at the right time then the sky is blue and everything is great. Bad timing and you are out of luck. I don't like the idea of a firm stubbornly holding onto their convictions waiting for the market to "see things their way" only to fall further and further behind. So far I haven't minded helping with the rent at T Rowe, they seem more adaptable. Hopefully their new fancy building in Baltimore doesn't distract them from what they've been doing right for a while now

I'm not patient enough or clever enough to properly time a fund to get in and out at the right time, nor do I have the desire to shuffle that much.

[galeno]

16.1%.

We handily beat our main benchmark Vanguard Target Retirement 2020 (50/50) which had a pre-distribution pre-tax return of 12.0%. We even bested VTR2025 (60/40)  which returned 13.3%.

We "crushed" VWINX (8.5%) and VWELX (10.6%).

Reason? We over-rebalanced equities on April 1st.