Performance

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raven9840
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Joined: Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:59 pm

Performance

Post by raven9840 »

As the year is coming to an end, I was just wondering how is everybody's tax deferred savings for retirement performing this year.(like IRA's 401k,457 etc)

Please chip in your % gains this year in your account/s. I bet most folks here are financially savvy and may have stellar gains..
If you do, please post some strategies you followed this year.

As always, Thank You!
John Z
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Joined: Sun Nov 14, 2010 4:42 pm

Re: Performance

Post by John Z »

I just did a quick summary on my portfolio over the weekend, ~90% IRA/Roth, ~10% taxable (cash/st bond) and the bottom line was around 11.35% holding a roughly 58/42 AA. Retired, age 65.
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midareff
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Re: Performance

Post by midareff »

About 13% portfolio total. (M* says 13.05) allocation 49 equities/48 FI /3 bank cash age - 65 (tomorrow :-) :oops: ) and retired.
jebmke
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Re: Performance

Post by jebmke »

raven9840 wrote:As the year is coming to an end, I was just wondering how is everybody's tax deferred savings for retirement performing this year.(like IRA's 401k,457 etc)

Please chip in your % gains this year in your account/s. I bet most folks here are financially savvy and may have stellar gains..
If you do, please post some strategies you followed this year.

As always, Thank You!
Some of us keep all our equity in taxable and bonds in deferred. Our returns on deferred accounts may lag the rest of the pack.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
livesoft
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Re: Performance

Post by livesoft »

Let's wait until all the numbers are in next week. There is usually a Chest Thumping thread after all distributions are seen around January 4th. Also madsinger publishes a monthly thread in which I will put a chart of Target Retirement returns versus fixed income percentage.
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Aptenodytes
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Re: Performance

Post by Aptenodytes »

The most savvy investors don't make the most stellar gains. This is a fallacy. The most savvy investors hit their benchmarks by starting out with a good plan and sticking to it.

Comparing personal rates of return tells you very little about how good investors were. If it did then we could use those annual Money Magazine ratings of mutual funds to become gazillionaires.
jebmke
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Re: Performance

Post by jebmke »

Aptenodytes wrote:The most savvy investors don't make the most stellar gains. This is a fallacy. The most savvy investors hit their benchmarks by starting out with a good plan and sticking to it.

Comparing personal rates of return tells you very little about how good investors were. If it did then we could use those annual Money Magazine ratings of mutual funds to become gazillionaires.
Especially over a short period of time. We were heavily tilted to small/mid value in the 90s and my colleagues who were into picking tech stocks did a lot of chest thumping. They are still working.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
Wagnerjb
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Re: Performance

Post by Wagnerjb »

Aptenodytes wrote:The most savvy investors don't make the most stellar gains. This is a fallacy. The most savvy investors hit their benchmarks by starting out with a good plan and sticking to it.

Comparing personal rates of return tells you very little about how good investors were. If it did then we could use those annual Money Magazine ratings of mutual funds to become gazillionaires.
Well said.
Andy
John Z
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Re: Performance

Post by John Z »

midareff wrote:About 13% portfolio total. (M* says 13.05) allocation 49 equities/48 FI /3 bank cash age - 65 (tomorrow :-) :oops: ) and retired.
HAPPY 65th and RETIREMENT!!!
sscritic
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Re: Performance

Post by sscritic »

At Vanguard: 9.00%
At TIAA-CREF: 8.68%

Tax deferred retirement accounts are mostly bonds and TIAA traditional. Taxable account is holding equities, but taxable returns were not part of your question.

P.S. I am 66. My taxable account is also for my retirement, but I took you at your word and ignored it.
tax deferred savings for retirement
P.P.S. Since I neither made contributions nor withdrawals, my computation was pretty easy. No XIRR for me.
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Clever_Username
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Re: Performance

Post by Clever_Username »

jebmke wrote:Some of us keep all our equity in taxable and bonds in deferred. Our returns on deferred accounts may lag the rest of the pack.
When I look at my 401(k) and see it's 75% bonds, I wonder if anyone on the administrative side looks at it and thinks I'm nuts for having it that way at age 30. They don't see the rest of the portfolio though.

The page for my 401(k) says I have ~1% gain in it. However, I was only eligible to start contributing to it in August and the percent gain is computed strangely (total value / total contributions).
"What was true then is true now. Have a plan. Stick to it." -- XXXX, _Layer Cake_ | | I survived my first downturn and all I got was this signature line.
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baw703916
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Re: Performance

Post by baw703916 »

Anyone with substantial equity holdings should have done pretty well in 2012. If they didn't they either weren't well diversified or didn't stay the course.
Most of my posts assume no behavioral errors.
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EternalOptimist
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Re: Performance

Post by EternalOptimist »

Clever_Username wrote:
jebmke wrote:Some of us keep all our equity in taxable and bonds in deferred. Our returns on deferred accounts may lag the rest of the pack.
When I look at my 401(k) and see it's 75% bonds, I wonder if anyone on the administrative side looks at it and thinks I'm nuts for having it that way at age 30. They don't see the rest of the portfolio though.

The page for my 401(k) says I have ~1% gain in it. However, I was only eligible to start contributing to it in August and the percent gain is computed strangely (total value / total contributions).

You need to change that to at least ~70% equities
"When nothing goes right....go left"
nolabogle
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Re: Performance

Post by nolabogle »

Tax deferred is 100% stocks. 1 year performance 16.4% for Roth IRA - VG Emerging Markets Index; Simple IRA - VG S&P 500 Index, REIT, Energy, Precious Metals. Good year for equities. Hopefully, with continued economic continues recovery the markets follow.
masteraleph
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Re: Performance

Post by masteraleph »

EternalOptimist wrote:
Clever_Username wrote:
jebmke wrote:Some of us keep all our equity in taxable and bonds in deferred. Our returns on deferred accounts may lag the rest of the pack.
When I look at my 401(k) and see it's 75% bonds, I wonder if anyone on the administrative side looks at it and thinks I'm nuts for having it that way at age 30. They don't see the rest of the portfolio though.

The page for my 401(k) says I have ~1% gain in it. However, I was only eligible to start contributing to it in August and the percent gain is computed strangely (total value / total contributions).

You need to change that to at least ~70% equities
I'm pretty sure you missed Clever_Username's point- that he's got a significant portfolio beyond the 401k, and is using his tax deferred (or at least 401k) space for bonds. So anyone looking at his 401k would think that he's ridiculously conservative, whereas he knows that he's just being practical.
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midareff
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Re: Performance

Post by midareff »

John Z wrote:
midareff wrote:About 13% portfolio total. (M* says 13.05) allocation 49 equities/48 FI /3 bank cash age - 65 (tomorrow :-) :oops: ) and retired.
HAPPY 65th and RETIREMENT!!!
MANY THANKS :mrgreen:
pkcrafter
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Re: Performance

Post by pkcrafter »

raven9840 wrote:As the year is coming to an end, I was just wondering how is everybody's tax deferred savings for retirement performing this year.(like IRA's 401k,457 etc)

Please chip in your % gains this year in your account/s. I bet most folks here are financially savvy and may have stellar gains..
If you do, please post some strategies you followed this year.

As always, Thank You!
Welcome to the forum. That's an unusual question for this forum, but the the total market index is up 15.5% this year, is that stellar? Lots of regulars here own it, but stellar is relative, and many don't even think in terms of stellar. Our strategies are pretty much based on the same foundation of meeting goals as efficiently as possible. Take a look:

http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_Started

Paul
When times are good, investors tend to forget about risk and focus on opportunity. When times are bad, investors tend to forget about opportunity and focus on risk.
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BigFoot48
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Re: Performance

Post by BigFoot48 »

I did maintenance and upgrades to my XIRR calculations yesterday but will wait until Decembers numbers are in to pay attention to how I did. It's usually somewhere between the lowest and highest numbers on madsinger's chart, with a bond-heavy tendancy toward the lower!

PS: OP, how can your first post be "as always"?
Retired | Two-time in top-10 in Bogleheads S&P500 contest; 18-time loser
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nisiprius
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Re: Performance

Post by nisiprius »

raven9840 wrote:As the year is coming to an end, I was just wondering how is everybody's tax deferred savings for retirement performing this year.(like IRA's 401k,457 etc)

Please chip in your % gains this year in your account/s. I bet most folks here are financially savvy and may have stellar gains..
If you do, please post some strategies you followed this year.

As always, Thank You!
It literally had not occurred to me to check my performance this year. But now you made me peek. Vanguard's "personal rate of return" was 8.4% for the last year (i.e. 12 months, not year-to-date).

The strategy I followed this year was to do nothing.

I have no idea whether 8.4% is relatively good or relatively bad, but in absolute terms it's good, and it's certainly good enough.

Actually I find 8.4% creepy, since I am very conservatively invested. I guess there must be a little bit of a bond bubble and I must have temporarily benefitted from it. I say "temporarily" because I plan to do nothing next year, and very likely I will lose some of those gains.
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gkaplan
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Re: Performance

Post by gkaplan »

December 27 (Today)
December 28 (Friday)
December 31 (End-of-Year)
Gordon
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steve roy
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Re: Performance

Post by steve roy »

6.5% return in Vanguard tax-deferred and taxable accounts. That's my wife's stash, and mine. My (smaller) 401(k) did better, up at 8-9%. I'm 64 this month and have 75% bonds (weighted to short term and TIPS), above the allocation target but what the hey. I'll rebalance as I push new money in next year.

This year has been one of trimming accounts. I'm out of the sector funds and into more small cap indexes. Swedroe, Bernstein and Bogle are my guiding lights. Thanks to everybody here for the fine advice. I've devoured it ravenously.
dwang
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Re: Performance

Post by dwang »

All YTD data: 6.4% return in our Vanguard tax-deferred and taxable accounts, overall with 20% in stocks, 78% in bonds (largest holdings Intermediate-Term Tax-Exempt , and Wellesley Income), and no more than 2% is in money market. Our 401K accounts have a combined total return of 8% return with 30% in stocks and 70% in bonds.
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Clever_Username
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Re: Performance

Post by Clever_Username »

masteraleph wrote:I'm pretty sure you missed Clever_Username's point- that he's got a significant portfolio beyond the 401k, and is using his tax deferred (or at least 401k) space for bonds. So anyone looking at his 401k would think that he's ridiculously conservative, whereas he knows that he's just being practical.
Correct (also possible that he or she was making a joke about not having seen the rest of the portfolio). My 401(k) will have ~$19k in it after next Monday's payroll deduction hits (started with this company in 2012, maxed out over the year, got some matching). However, the bonds in it will be between 25% and 30% of the total portfolio.

Another reason it won't make sense for me to calculate performance this year is that the vast majority of the holdings were added in the second half of the year. About $15k (of the total) was in previous retirement accounts in who-knows-what (prior 401(k) and prior 403(b)) and active funds that were advised to me that lost a good deal of money when TSM went up over the same period.
"What was true then is true now. Have a plan. Stick to it." -- XXXX, _Layer Cake_ | | I survived my first downturn and all I got was this signature line.
livesoft
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Re: Performance

Post by livesoft »

Clever_Username wrote:...
Another reason it won't make sense for me to calculate performance this year is that the vast majority of the holdings were added in the second half of the year. About $15k (of the total) was in previous retirement accounts in who-knows-what (prior 401(k) and prior 403(b)) and active funds that were advised to me that lost a good deal of money when TSM went up over the same period.
Actually, everybody got a "do-over" mid-year, so the performance from Jan-Dec is about the same as from Jun-Dec. :)
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poppa23
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Re: Performance

Post by poppa23 »

EternalOptimist wrote:
Clever_Username wrote:
jebmke wrote:Some of us keep all our equity in taxable and bonds in deferred. Our returns on deferred accounts may lag the rest of the pack.
When I look at my 401(k) and see it's 75% bonds, I wonder if anyone on the administrative side looks at it and thinks I'm nuts for having it that way at age 30. They don't see the rest of the portfolio though.

The page for my 401(k) says I have ~1% gain in it. However, I was only eligible to start contributing to it in August and the percent gain is computed strangely (total value / total contributions).

You need to change that to at least ~70% equities
Why ? Maybe thats his risk tolerance..Maybe thats what works for him..Dont listen to anyone. You need to create the asset allocation that works for you not what everyone else thinks you should have. Stay the course. YOUR course...Happy New Year..
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BolderBoy
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Re: Performance

Post by BolderBoy »

Aptenodytes wrote:Comparing personal rates of return tells you very little about how good investors were. If it did then we could use those annual Money Magazine ratings of mutual funds to become gazillionaires.
+1

My Money Magazine subscription expires in June. For the first time in 30+ years I will not be renewing it. It helped me in some ways over the years, but frankly, the last two years of reading this forum has educated me far, far better than MM ever did. No comparison, really.

And...

If Quicken is to be believed, I'm sitting on an 8%+ return for 2012 on a 60/40 bond/stock AA (TSMI, TISMI (10%), TBMI and TIPS (15%)) and am mostly retired. Thanks to the Bogleheads, it is the best return I've ever seen, including that by the 4 different "investment advisors" I used over a 10 year stretch, before going with the Boglehead approach.

My thanks to one and all.
letsgobobby
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Re: Performance

Post by letsgobobby »

My total retirement portfolio including taxable accounts:

55/45 portfolio on 1/1/12 has an XIRR of 11.89% YTD.

I'm super proud of appearing to have figured out how to use the XIRR function!
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Padlin
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Re: Performance

Post by Padlin »

BigFoot48 wrote:PS: OP, how can your first post be "as always"?

For some reason that jumped out at me too...
Regards | Bob
MathWizard
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Re: Performance

Post by MathWizard »

For the equity portion, I made what a market index made minus expenses.
I thought that was what we all were doing.

So any variation would be due to differences in AA and which market index
and bond fund we chose, (and maybe a little on what contributions/withdrawals we made).
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