Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Asset allocation, risk, diversification and rebalancing. Pros/cons of hiring a financial advisor. Seeking advice on your portfolio?
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Shakespeare
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Shakespeare »

Returns seem slightly lower than previous estimates because of a price drop in the 2021 RRB.

One year returns: 2016, 10.2%; 2015; 3.3%; 2014, 10.4%. 18 year IRR: 8.6%.

Benchmark is FPX Balanced.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by ig17 »

SQRT wrote:For those who have posted the returns relating to their TFSA, any reason you haven't posted the total returns here?
Whenever I see selective performance reporting (such as TFSA only, or stocks performance excluding FI and cash), Richard Feynman's quote comes to mind:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."

(this post is not directed at anyone in particular so please don't take offense)
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by THEMAINEVENT »

8.2% overall. Best results were our TFSA's both identical holdings at 23%.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Mordko »

My Couch Potato Portfolio return as of 01/01/17:

1 month: 1.5%
3 months: 3.3%
6 months: 11.4%
1 year: 6.0%
CAGR since 12/31/2002: 8.0% (Not enough data to estimate CAGR prior to 2002 or for 10 years).

These are money-weighted returns because that's what everyone else seems to be reporting. Time-weighted returns for the year happen to be exactly the same.

Other notes for 2016:
- My UK investments are in the red for the year. Although FTSE went up, the pound went down vs CAD by 18% as a result of Brexit.
- Fixed income suffered a small loss; over half of my FI holdings are in Sterling.
- Emerging Markets and Developed Markets outside the UK and N America did OK, returning just over 6% each in 2016.
- North American investments were the big winners, providing returns well into the double digits. Most of my US investment is in VBR (small value), which shot up after Trump got elected.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by EmperorCoder »

My overall result this year is 16.9%

Holdings are 100% equities, mostly US-denominated. S&P 500 return was 8.21% this year in CAD, so I am satisfied with my result.

CAGR for various time frames :

1 year: 16.9%
3 years: 20.8%
5 years: 31.8%
All Time (11 years): 20.1%
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Lazy Ninja »

Pretty good numbers reported here thus far. I guess it's up to me to bring down the average. I had a relatively poor year, posting a return of +4.3%, which means I captured barely more than half of my benchmark's return (FPX growth). It's the third time in nine years that I've trailed said benchmark, and the first time I've failed to come within at least 1.5% of it.

3 year CAGR is 7.1%, 5 year is 8.8% and 9 year is 6.9%. Similar to Thegipper, the U.S. side of the ledger was a little disappointing for me this year. Last year U.S. equities were almost soley responsible for my total portfolio return of +6.1%. I roughly broke even on them this year.

Individual equity returns were all over the map with four of 14 stocks returning over 20% and three others had returns of between -15 and -20%. I was surprised enough by my poor showing relative to FPX growth that I wondered if it required an alteration in strategy going forward. I decided I don't need to make any changes. In fact, in 2017 I intend to focus on my portfolio a little less. Instead I'll concentrate on exercise, diet and reducing costs associated with poor behaviour (smoking, drinking and fast food).

The only investment change I'm currently planning for this year is to try to check price fluctuations less frequently. I'm one of those guys who checks not only every day, but multiple times per day.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by StuBee »

EmperorCoder wrote:My overall result this year is 16.9%

Holdings are 100% equities, mostly US-denominated. S&P 500 return was 8.21% this year in CAD, so I am satisfied with my result.

CAGR for various time frames :

1 year: 16.9%
3 years: 20.8%
5 years: 31.8%
All Time (11 years): 20.1%
Very impressive results!!!

It is evident from what you have written that you are not cherry picking what yields you are sharing with FWF. I presume that you are not including new capital as a part of your yield. For example, the addition of 25K$ of new capital to a 50K$ portfolio, without any internal growth would give a 1 year "CAGR" (and not IRR) of 50%.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by EmperorCoder »

StuBee wrote:It is evident from what you have written that you are not cherry picking what yields you are sharing with FWF. I presume that you are not including new capital as a part of your yield. For example, the addition of 25K$ of new capital to a 50K$ portfolio, without any internal growth would give a 1 year "CAGR" (and not IRR) of 50%.
Pardon my sloppiness, I simply copied "CAGR" from the thread's title without looking up the definition :)

I have always been using XIRR function in Excel to compute my returns since 2006. So there is no skewing from capital inflows/outflows like you describe.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Quebec »

Lazy Ninja wrote:In fact, in 2017 I intend to focus on my portfolio a little less. Instead I'll concentrate on exercise, diet and reducing costs associated with poor behaviour (smoking, drinking and fast food). The only investment change I'm currently planning for this year is to try to check price fluctuations less frequently. I'm one of those guys who checks not only every day, but multiple times per day.
I did not check our investment accounts for 6 months in 2016, while overseas (we don't hold individual stocks). Then I only checked because I was adding more money and it was time to rebalance. If I was not adding new funds, I would check our portfolio twice a year, during the summer (for rebalancing) and on December 31st, to calculate the return. I've also been exercising more, since my retirement projections have me dead at 95.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by BRIAN5000 »

Passive income just shy of $200k/yr. Biggest contributors were increasing rental income and acquisition of additional US property.
So $200K on 4 mil is 5% which I think is pretty good or do we need to subtract your PR from the 4 mil which makes it even better. I'm only making 2.75% on investable assets but 60% of that is fixed income.
This information is believed to be from reliable sources but may include rumor and speculation. Accuracy is not guaranteed
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by ig17 »

FPX Benchmarks

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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by DenisD »

Here are my 2016 results. Basically, I've just edited last year's results and added this year's figures.

For 2016, my 1, 5, 10 and 15 year returns are 6.6%, 5.3%, 4.8% and 6.3%. The after-tax 15 year return is 0.3% less. My 1, 5 and 10 year returns for equities are 15.5%, 11% and 6.4%. At year-end, I had 35.3% equities and 44.9% cash.

In 2016, the equity markets returned to normal. My stock screens and fundamental index ETFs outperformed. Small-cap beat large-cap.

I use NormR's Asset Mixer to calculate equity benchmark returns. Norbert/Norm haven't posted 2016 returns yet. So, for now, I'm using numbers from other sources. The 2016 asset allocation was 40% Canada, 24% US, 24% EAFE, 12% Emerging Markets. The preliminary equity benchmark return is 11%.

I outperformed my equity benchmark by 4.5%, ending four straight years of underperformance. Over the past 5 and 10 years, my equity returns are 1.2% lower and 1.1% higher than the benchmark returns.

Here are three 10-year charts looking at the equity portion of my portfolio.

The first shows plan vs actual. Until 2014, the plan was to keep the equity value constant in real terms. But, as Mike Tyson said, "Everyone has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth." That happened in 2008. From 2014, the plan has been to increase the equity value by 1%/year real.

The second shows the one month, 12 month and five year equity returns.

The third shows the one month, 12 month and five year value yield. The value yield is the income I receive by keeping the equities at the planned value. Hopefully, it's greater than zero over the long term.
2016 1.jpg
2016 2.jpg
2016 3.jpg
For those anal types like me who like to see all the details, I have Portfolio Returns, an Office Online spreadsheet. I've been tracking my investments on a homegrown Excel system since the end of 2002.

Now for some comments on the individual asset classes.

For Canadian large-cap value, US large-cap value and US small-cap value, I have 20-stock screens based on O'Shaughnessy's algorithms. For Canadian small-cap value, I have a 10-stock screen.

I have two Google spreadsheets. Screen Trades lists the trades since I started. Screen to Date shows the price change for current positions

The three 20-stock screens all did well, outperforming by from 1% to more than 10%. They're outperforming by 2 to 3.5% over five years. The two large-cap screens are outperforming by about 2.5% over 10 years. The US small-cap screen is still underperforming by about 2% over 10 years. But I have high hopes for the future. The new Canadian small-cap screen gained 29.6% in its first calendar year.

EAFE large-cap value is a mixture of Powershares and iShares fundamental index ETFs (PXF and CIE). I have Powershares fundamental index ETFs for EAFE small-cap value and emerging large-cap value (PDN and PXH). PXF/CIE outperformed VEA by 2.7% and PXH outperformed VWO by 20%.

I plan to show a comparison of my screens with fundamental and cap weighted ETFs in a week or two.

I have iShares S&P/TSX Composite ETF for Canadian all-cap (XIC). And I have Vanguard ETFs for US large-cap, EAFE large-cap and emerging large-cap (VV, VEA, VWO).

For REITs, I have the top 8 REITs by market cap, excepting hotels and retirement residences. They gained 14.9%.

For resources, I have some small and mid-cap dividend paying resource companies, mainly energy companies. They gained 31.7%.

For bonds, I have Vanguard Canadian Aggregate Bond Index ETF (VAB). It gained 1.3%.

For real return bonds, I just have a 2021 bond. It gained 0.1%. The 2031 real return bond gained 1.8%.

Cash is a mixture of a GIC ladder and various high interest accounts. Cash gained 1.6%.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Lazy Ninja »

Quebec wrote:I did not check our investment accounts for 6 months in 2016, while overseas (we don't hold individual stocks). Then I only checked because I was adding more money and it was time to rebalance. If I was not adding new funds, I would check our portfolio twice a year, during the summer (for rebalancing) and on December 31st, to calculate the return.
I don't think I could ever get to a place where I checked that infrequently (probably not advisable for an individual stock picker anyway). I was thinking of trying to restrict myself to checking only after market close. How often do you check FWF :wink: ?

Congrats on the increased exercising frequency. Keep it up!
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Arby »

Reviewing the 1 year change in price for my stocks, all except one stock increased in price (not including dividends). Overall 2016 was probably one of my best years. Quite a few stocks increased around 30-50%. My best performing stocks over 1 year was a diverse group including Waste Connections (56%), Veresen (48%), TFI (48%), Saputo (44%). My worst performing was Stella Jones (-17%).
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Lazy Ninja »

Arby wrote: My worst performing was Stella Jones (-17%).
That was only my third worst performer. Did slightly worse with both Nike and CVS health. I still like all three going forward and have added to SJ and CVS in the past few months.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Jungle »

It was because this thread in FWF I started to track my returns using XIRR back in 2010, and (very) painstakingly obtained data back from 2001, to complete a 16 year history of returns.

So I have to thank the community for the honesty of the returns, even if underperforming. :beer:
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Quebec »

Lazy Ninja wrote:How often do you check FWF :wink: ?
More often than I check our portfolio, obviously. But I did almost ignore the forum and finiki for those six months overseas. Sometime you need a break from all things financial, if only to plunge back with renewed enthusiasm later.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by AltaRed »

Quebec wrote:But I did almost ignore the forum and finiki for those six months overseas. Sometime you need a break from all things financial, if only to plunge back with renewed enthusiasm later.
It can be all consuming if one lets it become a habit. There will always be a missed opportunity here and there, i.e. a high sell or a low buy, but I suspect it will be just noise in the overall scheme of things. For example, I missed the opportunity on a few 'buy lows' in February and October of 2016 because I was off in other parts of the world enjoying myself, not even paying attention to world news. Those 'missed' opportunities tend to seem a lot bigger than they really are in the overall picture over the long run.

FWIW, when I am at home and not otherwise occupied, I tend to click the 'Update' button on Quicken once a week to see what the change in my Net Worth is and generally where the gains or losses occurred for that week. They are usually sectoral shifts depending on interest rate sentiment that particular week. It is interesting but nothing I would have acted on.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by hboy43 »

Hi:

15 year: 10%
10 year: 11%
5 year: 21%
1 year: don't report any more, too short term to be meaningful. (See my rant in the 2015 thread on the other site LOL)

The older numbers (10 and 15) include my rental house which was sold some 7 or 8 years ago.

I leverage, returns are ROE. ROC are of course going to be lower, but too much trouble to try and do a reasonable calculation. Year end leverage as % of portfolio: 2006, 12; 2011, 23; 2016, 24. I aim for around 25% leverage, but it goes up during "interesting" times like 32% at year end 2015 and around 50% circa 2009. I have had margin calls.

The 15 year number is a bit of a guess because I don't have the debt figure in my electronic records. Might well be closer to 11%.

I don't break out the results into his or hers; or TFSA, RRSP, margin etc. It is all the same pool of money owned by the same 2 people. There are undoubtedly tax consequences of what is held where, but over decades it will come out in the wash, much like currency fluctuations.

Speaking of currency, I mostly stick to Canada. The direct foreign holdings are GE at about 2% of portfolio, though I used to own more GE and JNJ. Many of the nominally Canadian holdings are very international however.

I have had zero fixed income for about a quarter century other than a reasonable float in mid 4 figures.

Though I don't any longer report 1 year numbers as I believe they are meaningless for everyone, but especially for me, I do calculate them and they are all over the map (as in about -50% and +very big % occasionally) as one would expect for 100% equity plus leverage investing. I benchmark the long term numbers to 8% which is about the century figure on stock returns.

The numbers are rounded to one significant figure as I do not have the records for, nor the interest in tracking in and out flows to do a IRR. In any event, the size of the portfolio dominates over any in and out flows, so the difference between my estimate and the actual figure is immaterial. Plus more precision would not provide any useful feedback in the sense that I would do anything differently if I knew my 10 year figure was 11.9 instead of 11.0.

The shorter term number is better due to two periods of extreme opportunity: anything in 2008/2009, and oil, gas, materials in recent years; and removal of the dead weight of the rental house, Ottawa was never Toronto or Vancouver. Plus I probably have a better sense of what I do now than I did years ago, and my most recent (of 6 ever) bankruptcy loss was Nortel.

I have less investing knowledge than many here. I spend very little time reading reports or doing calculations. I did the CSC course about 3 decades ago and used to do calculations. I had 5 bankruptcies in that era too. Over time I came to the realization that there is almost nothing about the investing process that warrants any precision beyond one significant figure, so if I do read an annual report, I just estimate the ratios in my head. The important stuff is qualitative as in "is this company in the modern buggy whip business?".

I am a very long term investor. SNC has likely been owned almost 20 years. Of the 25 companies I held in 2006, I still own 8 of them. 3 were taken private, one is bankrupt (hello Nortel my old friend ...), and one was purchased by another public company. 4 or 5 others I can see owning again one day, but were ejected to raise funds for other adventures. Four of the missing were sold in the past 2 years, again just to illustrate the long term nature. In 2006, SNC was 6.1% of portfolio, today it is 4.4%, with about double the number of shares held currently.

Though I own stocks I would not say I am a stock picker. I mostly play within my harem and rarely bring in a new lover, or send one away. This of course further reduces any necessity of reading annual reports etc. as I am already familiar with this set of companies. I am more a purchase time and purchase price picker. Over the years, I have come to think that it would not really matter which stocks I own as long as they were diversified and met certain qualitative requirements. In a sense stocks are vectors of human emotion, like mosquitoes are for malaria, and much of what I do is buy them low during times of panic, and give them back during times of euphoria, all while trying to maintain an approximate portfolio weighting, usually 5%, but sometimes 10%. When neither panic, nor euphoria, I sit on my hands. I once went 14 months with zero transactions, and the 30 plus average over all my and my wife's accounts would be under 10 transactions per year I think.

I have never sold short. I have never played with options or warrants. I have never owned an ETF or mutual fund, but my wife came with mutual funds which today are about 3% of the portfolio. So the MER is extremely low.

I have only day traded once and ostensibly made over $2K. The thing is, if I had held EMA, it would have grown at something like 15%PA during the following years. A return of a few percent over a few days annualized to over 100% PA sounds impressive and has great bragging possibilities, but it is a mirage. 6 or 10% PA on average over decades works much better.

Most investors seek to reduce volatility. I see it as a key piece of my success, for the more the volatility, the more the opportunity to buy lowish and sell highish. I am a falling knife catcher, and the more bloody my hands get in the short term, the better my return in the long term. There is not much of a signal to buy the TSX when the TSX falls 10%, but when OSB fell for example from my initial buy around $100 (circa 2005) and lingered in the $5 to $10 range a number of years after 2009, I just hear a bell "ding, ding", followed by "beep, beep" as I back up the truck.

Am I just lucky? Maybe. Certainly the particular companies and the particular transactions have a high luck component. However, I see what I do in the long term as being very deterministic in the whole. 20 years from now, I think there is a better chance that I will have done well with my investing than the probability that I will still be alive. Many people insist on certainty in their investing activities, something that they do not expect in the rest of their lives. I suggest that aiming for investing certainty is very expensive and counterproductive.

Finally, what I believe to be the number 1 reason I do OK at investing, and why what I do is not in general transferable. The principle of "Fear a loss more than value a gain" is not true for me. So in a sense my investing success is based upon the "luck" of atypical brain wiring.

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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by scomac »

XIRR VS. FPX GROWTH:

Code: Select all

1 YR:  10.09%   7.66%
3 YR:  9.09%    8.49%
5 YR:  9.84%    9.45%
10 YR: 7.85%    4.93%
ASSET ALLOCATION:

Code: Select all

40% CAD EQ
30% USD EQ
30% FD INC
Returns do not include cash or HISA.

With 10 years of data now, running a bond ladder in my RRSP, I am lagging the benchmark of XBB by somewhere between 10 and 20 basis points depending upon time frame. Recent fixed income investments have been made in ETFs as a result. Even with a 10 year ladder and $25K purchases the commissions on direct bond purchases still cannot compete with the MER of the ETF!

I have enjoyed some measure of success picking stock in the Canadian market for over 15 years now. I don't attribute this to any particular skill, but simply to avoiding the plethora of higher risk names that occupy our market and being patient. I have had some wonderful success with smaller stocks , but also many, many misses. This has lead me to use a CEF for the basket approach for this segment hopefully reducing the risk in picking individual names even if the trade-off is muted returns as flashy return numbers simply aren't required. I have used a mixture of funds and individual stock picks in the US/foreign market. This has worked well in complementing the lack of breadth and depth in my Canadian stock picks, but I'm not married to the approach. A total market approach is likely to be just as effective over time even with the drawbacks within the Canadian market.

Calendar results for 2016 were largely due to some fortuitous timing; crystallizing losses and then purchasing blue chip large caps that were on sale in January and February. A significant exposure to international stocks in a fund has been a drag on overall performance along with the muted returns in fixed income holdings. That said, total portfolio value is at an all time high.

[Added] Benchmark comparison added
Last edited by scomac on 02 Jan 2017 16:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by AltaRed »

I was going to wait until final December distributions were booked but they won't move the needle more than 0.1% So......

2016 12.00%
5 year 11.65%
8.5 yr* 8.28%

* unreliable earlier than July 1, 2008 due to deconsruct and re-construct of portfolio due to asset division for divorce settlement.

Portfolio is currently about 80% equity and 20% fixed income, with US and Int'l equity components about 45%. US and Int'l equity is virtually all broad based ETFs except for a few legacy US stocks that get cashed in when I need USD for major purchases. Cdn equity is primarily individual stock holdings with one smallish F class legacy mutual fund that continues to outperform the TSX Composite over mutliple year periods.

My equity allocation is high because my smallish non-COLA'd DB pension can cover a good portion of base fixed expenses albeit it will become increasingly less able to do so due to inflationary impact. The equity allocation has been creeping up slowly over time due to outperformance relative to fixed income components. I do NOT re-balance explicitly. I re-balance implicitly by cashing in equity capital holdings when I need the cash for an exotic holiday, new vehicle, etc. allocation. Should equity markets tank, re-balancing will take care of itself. My smallish RRSP is all fixed income in a 6 year GIC/bond/debenture ladder (to be converted to RRIF in 3 years) and my TFSA will shortly be 100% REITs.

My investing history is not atypical of a lot of us 'senior' investors who first started out in actively managed mutual funds. It was in the late 1990's (about Asian flu time and the advent of broadband internet) that I recognized there had to be a better way to not be sucked dry by vampires and started my own parallel DIY portfolio when E*Trade came to Canada. The transition to DIY got put on hold for a number of years while an ex-pat. Upon return to Canada in early 2006, we fired our full service advisor and moved everything to DIY. The transition out of mutual funds to individual stock holdings and ETFs began in earnest, again interrupted in late 2007/early 2008 due to asset division noted above. It was not until the financial crisis of 2008/2009 that I was able to overhaul both my, and my ex's portfolios to suit our individual needs and position them forward. It was an interesting period of time.... where some mistakes were also made (and learned). By 2011, the picture became clear for both portfolios and little has changed since.

Like Scomac, I am not much of a 'deep analysis' stock picker. I do some periphery analysis, look at some research reports, and some basic P/E, ROE, dividend yield/growth metrics and make decisions on stocks based on that. I am happy with base hits. I hope I have learned to avoid 'modern buggy whip' companies (Yellow Pages anyone? and getting cute with COS in 2014) and to avoid commodity and resource companies. I have had a 2015/2016 experience with fixed reset preferreds that I don't want to re-experience, albeit they will likely work out longer term. I will keep the bigger holdings but get rid of (or consolidate) some smaller holdings.

I don't dabble in smallish companies, preferring to stick to large caps most of the time. I don't need 5 and 10 baggers and have never used leverage. Except for the odd 'swap' of a stock now and then, perhaps* 1-2 a year, I see no reason why my portfolio should look any differently 5-10 years from now. Time will tell.

* Example: I am not so happy with PWF due to slow cap appreciation probably due to its potentially 'buggy whip' IGM business. It is a swap candidate when the right replacement comes calling.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by northbynorthwest »

Very good >25% gain in 2016 here, helping put the -2.5% of 2015 further in the rear view mirror.
My tracking doesn't go back far enough for 10 years so I have done a 9-year annualized of 5.1% (which includes my -38% of 2008) in this chart along with 3 & 5 years. My returns are simple and less precise than others here, and annualized are by geomean of calendar years. I benchmark vs FPX Growth, Mawer Balanced (which seems to have had a less formidable spell) and Cdn, US, Global indexes.
IMG_0629.PNG
All equities portfolio, mostly individual Cdn and a few U.S. stocks, supplemented by some funds/ETFs for exposure like international, global small cap.

No fixed income. But I aim for 5-10 % in cash as dry powder for opportunities in "normal" times when Mr. Market doesn't seem wildly optimistic or pessimistic. That went down to zero during last January's correction. Been raising cash since summer, and it is now up to 19%.
Sold down banks, lifecos, CNR, TFI, to reduce weights, capture sizeable gains in recent months.
Top holdings now: BAM.A, GOOGL, HR.UN, CPG, CVS.
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by Spudd »

It's interesting to look at money-weighted vs time-weighted returns. I use Longinvest's Bogleheads returns spreadsheet usually (which does time-weighted) so I had to make my own XIRR calculations.

Time-weighted:
1 year 8.88%
3 years 4.70%
5 years 1.71%

Money-weighted (XIRR):
1 year 7.68%
3 years 2.76%
5 years 2.38%

This is not entirely accurate because it only looks at my TDDI account - 3 and 5 years ago I also had investments at Sun Life in a company plan, but I don't have the data from that. The 3/5 year numbers are low because I did a lot of faffing around speculating when I first started doing self-directed investing. I think I've gotten over that now for the most part, I still do a bit in my TFSA just for fun.

Allocation currently is 40% cash, 60% equities.
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fisab
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by fisab »

1 year: 21.77%
5 years: 10.49%
10 years: 7.57%
20 years: 8.61%

I have always been invested, almost exclusively, in Canadian equities.
(Calculated by Quicken).
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always_learning
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Re: Portfolio Returns 2016, along with 5, 10 year CAGR Performance

Post by always_learning »

I'm enjoying reading this thread. I have some interesting numbers to contribute; hopefully I can help people feel better about their 10-year returns.

CAGR (XIRR) 1, 5 and 10 year:
10 yr: 4.5% (!)
5 yr 9.1%
1 yr 15.38%

all equities, currently
Canadian 43%
US 32%
EAFE 20%
EM 5%

2008 was grim, but I didn't adjust anything. Just trusted in equities to come back.

How about that ten-year return, eh? :) Why is my ten-year performance so far below my benchmark indexes? The reason is that, for the US, I rely on an ETF and nine stocks from the 80s and 90s (back when I used a full-service broker and didn't know anything about investing). (No single stock is more than 3% of my total portfolio, thanks to some good diversification advice I received a decade ago on this forum.) Because they are now ~85% unrealized capital gains, I am reluctant to sell them and buy a broad-based US ETF.

It's just due to bad luck for my particular stocks over the past ten years: unlucky companies and unlucky sectors. Largely because three of the nine stocks are/were Best Buy, ExxonMobil, and Amoco (now BP):

2007-2016, I underperformed my benchmark indexes (contributing to that low 4.5% above),
BUT
1993-2007, I outperformed my benchmark indexes.

I plan to hang on to the stocks, maybe trimming them over time. I have no reason to think that my stocks will either underperform or overperform going forward.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have simply bought a broad-based ETF for my US exposure. When I educated myself and became a DIY investor, I broadened outside of the US and used exclusively ETFs for my EAFE and EM exposure. I'm glad I did so.

a_l
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