What was your 2012 return?

[bottomfisher]

Vanguard taxable and IRA 90/10% stock/bond 16.8%, outside 457 plan 100% international stock 17%. Cash/emergency funds not included in these returns. Thank you for sharing the above graphs.

[Baloophi]

12.76% (if I'm using my XIRR spreadsheet properly)

70/30 stocks/bonds

Sliced simply as follows:
10% - REIT
10% - SMALL CAP VALUE
20% - TOTAL INT'L
30% - TOTAL STOCK
-----------------------------
30% - TOTAL BOND

[mickeyd]

This entire thread is not much more that the old "I'll Show you mine if you show me yours" game that I used to play with my neighborhood girlfriend named Kay when I was in grade school. I kinda knew what to expect,but reassuring that what I am looking at was a good comparison that is probably pretty accurate.

[NOCODO]

My 2012 return was 15.0% on a Fidelity Freedom 2045 target retirement date fund (85/15).

The expense ratio is listed as 0.63% ... how do I find out where that money went? (perhaps a more apt question for a different thread...)

Brian

[chipperd]

12.3% with allocation of %55 stock, %30 bonds and %15 cash/short term

[livesoft]

This entire thread is not much more that the old "I'll Show you mine if you show me yours" game that I used to play with my neighborhood girlfriend named Kay when I was in grade school. I kinda knew what to expect,but reassuring that what I am looking at was a good comparison that is probably pretty accurate.

You and others will probably enjoy this Carolyn Geer WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 96556.html
It's about financial comparisons helping people to be better investors. You know, the peer pressure thing.

[kbrinaldi]

Retirement Portfolio
2012 Performance: 15.32%
2011 Performance: -5.56%
Stocks 80% (25% LB; 25% ILB; 25% ISB; 25% SV) & 20% Total Bond Market

Play-around Portfolio (less than 10% size of Retirement Portfolio)
2012: 22.09%
2011: 22.23%
Just riding some coattails

[jegallup]

2/3 Stocks and 1/3 bonds returned 11.3% for 2012. Not bad.

I had almost exactly the same allocation and result.

[kenyan]

My 2012 return was 15.0% on a Fidelity Freedom 2045 target retirement date fund (85/15).

The expense ratio is listed as 0.63% ... how do I find out where that money went? (perhaps a more apt question for a different thread...)

Brian

That money was pulled out of your account daily as a (hidden) drag on your returns. If they had decided to charge you 0.00% for 2012, your return would have been 15.63% - or near enough to that number.

[ofcmetz]

I had guessed in the 13% range.

Finally got all the numbers put together.

12.27% for 2012. Better than the 2.43% for 2011

[illcrx]

[Commercial website promotion removed by admin LadyGeek]

[pkcrafter]

[Commercial website promotion removed by admin LadyGeek]

And what is the [Commercial website removed by admin LadyGeek]?

I hope illcrx is not promoting this idea--first it isn't Bogleish, and second it would be spammy.

Paul

[BuckyBadger]

He's promoting it. He's mentioned it in at least 50% of his posts.

[kenyan]

It appears that the [Commercial website removed by admin LadyGeek] is not even active until January 15. That's a neat trick to use a method that is not even available yet, unless...

[winterescape]

12.9% with 55/45 stock/bond. Average duration of the majority of our bond funds is 3.2Y, most stock is VTSAX, light on International allocation

[obgyn65]

About 3% in my case, without additions.

[Grasshopper]

Poor me always average.

[betahat]

11.24% with about 2/3 in equities (about 23% in international) and 1/3 in bonds.

[gordo]

14.00% IRR on the dot according to Quicken, with approximately 80/20 equities/fixed.

More important in my mind was 20.1% overall portfolio growth (including contributions).

[hansp]

13.0% w/ sliced & diced 70/30 portfolio (50% of stock in international)

[empb]

21.05%

[EternalOptimist]

Roughly 10% with 45% stocks/55% bonds

[Clearly_Irrational]

I have to say, I'm pretty surprised at how risk tolerant everyone is.

[DVMResident]

35% Domestic (small value and REIT tilt), 35% International (EM and small cap tilt), 15% HY bond, 15% total bond --> 16.46%

Beat Target Date fund by 0.12%. Go 'slice & dice'!

[Call_Me_Op]

11.7% with 40% diversified equity.

[ef11]

These returns are blowing my mind. My first contribution was made in March, when the market was high and my return was only 2.7% From March 16 - December 31. I guess this is just because the market had a good runup during the first two months and I missed out??

Still, the US Market was up ~8% for the year but most people got above 10%? I'm assuming due to international funds, REITs, things of that nature?

[kenyan]

The US market was up far more than 8%. Vanguard Total Stock Market Admiral Shares, a reasonable benchmark to use, was up 16.4% for 2012.

[gordo]

Still, the US Market was up ~8% for the year but most people got above 10%? I'm assuming due to international funds, REITs, things of that nature?

Don't forget to look at the total market, not just S&P500 and also don't forget dividends. Morningstar shows that VTSAX did 16.38% in 2012:
http://performance.morningstar.com/fund ... ture=en-US

[Easy Rhino]

I think it's interesting that since bonds had a fairlow strong year, even the more conservative boglehead's performance was fairly good, and fairly close to that of those with higher stock allocations.

The old 401k plan at JP Morgan had a 4.4% annualized rate of return for the period 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2012.
The new 401k plan at Fidelity had a 9.6% annualized rate of return for the period 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2012 .

... it depends on how they "annualize" the figures, but I would guess that your annual performance would have been a blend of the two over the year... like 7%.

[livesoft]

^Actually, it should probably be the sum and not the blend. If all the money in the old plan was transferred to the new plan (that is, contiguously invested), then it is the sum. And indeed, this is about what madbrain already noted.

[sscritic]

Well I am not going back to reread five pages, but I know that if 100% of my money goes up 4.4% and the other 100% of my money goes up 9.6%, then I made 14% for the year. Adding is definitely the correct way to figure your return.

[thomasbayarea]

Just curious to know: how is everyone here calculating their return? Isn't that a tedious exercise?

I have multiple retirement accounts with multiple funds in them. I rebalanced twice last year. I added the max 401(k) & Roth IRA limit to each account and my employer matched some % of my salary. At the end of the day all I know is how much I had in Jan 2012 and Jan 2013. Coming up with a % return is hard!

[livesoft]

How to calculate return? Why this thread has inspired lots of folks to use the XIRR() in Excel or programs that use that algorithm like MSMoney. How else could they report legitimate returns to 2 decimal places? Certainly nobody is supposed to be guessing here.

[petrico]

^Actually, it should probably be the sum and not the blend. If all the money in the old plan was transferred to the new plan (that is, contiguously invested), then it is the sum. And indeed, this is about what madbrain already noted.

Well I am not going back to reread five pages, but I know that if 100% of my money goes up 4.4% and the other 100% of my money goes up 9.6%, then I made 14% for the year. Adding is definitely the correct way to figure your return.

I don't thing that's the way annualized returns work.

If you earn 2.2% on 100% of your money over 6 months, that's an annualized rate of 4.4%. Then if you earn 4.8% on 100% of your money over the next 6 months, that's an annualized rate of return of 9.6%.

So, would the true annual return be 7% = (4.4+9.9)/2?

Or 14% = 4.4+9.6?

--Pete

[livesoft]

^Except the dates for the annualized return were given.

[petrico]

^ Yes, but they were identical.

viewtopic.php?p=1570919#p1570919

Looks like I did significantly better than I thought.

The old 401k plan at JP Morgan had a 4.4% annualized rate of return for the period 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2012.
The new 401k plan at Fidelity had a 9.6% annualized rate of return for the period 1/1/2012 - 12/31/2012 .

So I guess I got about 14% on my 401k assets, close to the S&P 500 market return . Yet I know that rollover cost me a good 4 to 5% on my return while the money was being transferred.

--Pete

[livesoft]

Exactly my point. Try it yourself.

[sscritic]

Which is why you had to invest 200% so all your money could be in both funds at the same time.

[petrico]

There's no way to know the actual time period madbrain was invested at each location during the year. madbrain was obviously not 100% invested in both accounts for the entire year (unless heavily leveraged).

I suspect each custodian is reporting for the entire year period, even though the funds were actually held in each location for only part of the year.

--Pete

[sscritic]

So let's try to get a little closer to reality. Let's assume you had money in the first fund for the first six months. Now it would be nice to know the actual return for those six months, but if we assume the 4.4% annualized was uniform throughout the year, then you take the square root of 1.044 to get 1.02176 or 2.176% per half year (compounded gives you 4.4% for the year). On the back end, square root of 1.096 =1.0469. Compounding the 2.176% in the first half with the 4.69% in the second, you get

1.02176 x 1.0469 = 1.0697 or 6.97%

Quicker method: 1.044 x 1.096 = 1.14422

take sqrt (1.14422) = 1.06968 or 6.968%

[crowd79]

12.1%

[Rockies1978]

Wow, I did a lot better than I thought. Thanks to those of you who referenced the XIRR function, that's handy. If I did it right, I came out a lot better than I expected 16.5%!

I have yet to completey Bogleize my portfolio, but my discretionary retirement holdings for 2012 included:

Am Funds Growth Fund of America
Am Funds New Perspective Fund
Fidelity Global Balanced
Vanguard Wellington
Vanguard Windsor (for part of the year, I sold my position)

I guess one of the reasons I did well is because I had an over aggressive asset allocation, probably around 80/20 as of Jan 2012 (I'm 34).

[dickenjb]

Somewhere between 11 & 12%. At least that is what Life Strategy Moderate Growth returned, and since my 3 fund portfolio 60/40 with 30% of equities in international is pretty much a mirror image of LS Mod Gro I think I can safely say I approximated its return.

Vanguard Personal Performance says 15.1% but that is because it does not include my 401(k) which is 100% SVF that returned 1.96%.

My mother in law who is 100% in Vanguard, 3 fund portfolio 50/50 saw 10.6%. Almost exactly the average between LS Mod Gro at 11.76% and LS Cons Gro at 9.19%.

[sscritic]

2012 is so last year. What has your 2013 return been? I am still waiting for TIAA-CREF to post for today, but it look like I am up about 1.25% in 10 days (7 market days). Annualize that!

[texas_archer]

Just curious to know: how is everyone here calculating their return? Isn't that a tedious exercise?

I have multiple retirement accounts with multiple funds in them. I rebalanced twice last year. I added the max 401(k) & Roth IRA limit to each account and my employer matched some % of my salary. At the end of the day all I know is how much I had in Jan 2012 and Jan 2013. Coming up with a % return is hard!

I use m* portfolio monitor and have been entering all my investment transactions since I started investing in 2006.

[petrico]

2012 is so last year. What has your 2013 return been? I am still waiting for TIAA-CREF to post for today, but it look like I am up about 1.25% in 10 days (7 market days). Annualize that!

No kidding -- it's been a great year! I'm up 1.75% with no contributions or withdrawals.

XIRR so far this year = 85.39% (annualized, of course)

--Pete

[letsgobobby]

Just curious to know: how is everyone here calculating their return? Isn't that a tedious exercise?

I have multiple retirement accounts with multiple funds in them. I rebalanced twice last year. I added the max 401(k) & Roth IRA limit to each account and my employer matched some % of my salary. At the end of the day all I know is how much I had in Jan 2012 and Jan 2013. Coming up with a % return is hard!

I asked just this question one year ago and received the same answer you have. In 2012 I resolved to track every contribution (no withdrawals)... all 83 of them. I promised myself I would only do it for one year, but instead I have now acquired yet another obsessive financial habit. How else would I be able to answer this poll next year?

[eaglesfogbowl]

16.09% 75/25 stock/bond

[Easy Rhino]

huh, Quicken tells me the IRR was 17.36%.

But I'm not sure if I trust it. For instance, Quicken said my 401k's IRR was 19%, when Prudential said it was only 14.5%.

(asset mix About 22% bonds, with some extra small value and REIT exposure... I can guess it might have done better than the S&P, but not that much)

[gordo]

huh, Quicken tells me the IRR was 17.36%.

But I'm not sure if I trust it. For instance, Quicken said my 401k's IRR was 19%, when Prudential said it was only 14.5%.

If you care about an accurate IRR, do not blindly trust Quicken. I spent 3 days poring through my data with wildly changing results before I was confident it was accurate. Here's a few things I learned (this applies to the latest Quicken 2013 R10 but likely to older versions as well):

1. Backup, then run a "validate and repair" on your quicken file (select validate file and rebuild investing lots). I found an error that impacted my calculated 2012 IRR.
2. For each security in your portfolio, you need to be careful to have the proper closing prices recorded (in Price History) on Dec 30th (2011) and Dec 31st (2012) as those are the key dates that Quicken will use for many IRR calculations for calendar year 2012. This is especially important for any manually updated accounts as the quotes won't have been automatically downloaded and you're unlikely to have entered them manually if you didn't have transactions on those dates.
3. For manual accounts, you also need to make sure that any buy and sell transactions have the proper corresponding prices recorded on those dates.
4. Run the Investment Performance report. Make sure to choose last year (2012) and then edit the included securities manually to select only your retirement-related accounts (assuming that what you're trying to establish an IRR for.) Subtotal by Account or Security and compare each one to their related benchmarks or your financial institution's numbers. Look for any outliers and dig in deeper to see if it's truly an IRR difference or an unresolved anomaly.
5. In particular, make sure conversions and rebalances are handled properly. I had several issues that I only discovered when I went through each account with a fine tooth comb and inspected transactions. I had some Investor --> Admiral Shares conversions that had been automatically treated as "bought" and "sold" transactions which impacted my IRR significantly. Once I altered them to be "add" and "remove", the numbers came into line.