Trailing portfolio return (time-weighted):
1 month: -0.4%
3 month: 0.6%
6 month: -5.4%
YTD: -5.7% (money-weighted return is slightly better).
All returns in CAD.
Asset allocation: 16% - fixed income; the rest - equity. Equity allocations by regions: Canadian - 7%, US - 26%, UK - 12%, Other developed - 16%, Emerging - 23%.
Not much movement in April. Canadian and emerging markets did well. UK dropped because of the Brexit fears. US went up in USD but dropped in CAD.
Search found 15 matches
- Sun May 01, 2016 8:42 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
- Replies: 5248
- Views: 899584
- Fri Apr 01, 2016 5:49 pm
- Forum: Personal Consumer Issues
- Topic: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part VI
- Replies: 7638
- Views: 1712373
Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part VI
In the middle of William Shirer's Berlin Diares . He is the author of the more famous Rise and Fall of the Third Reich . This book is basically just excerpts from a diary he kept while a news correspondent in Europe in the mid 30s. What's fascinating is the book was published prior to Pearl Harbor. While not a masterpiece of writing, it's been fascinating getting his real-time impressions of events, including many significant events that didn't seem so at the time and others that seemed significant, but weren't. Also incredible to see how wrong many of the experts were (for example, a U.S. Embassy Defense Attache tells him after Germany invaded Poland: "The Polish army should be able to hold out at least six months on its own"). ...
- Fri Apr 01, 2016 12:08 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
- Replies: 5248
- Views: 899584
Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
What a contrast with the end of January, when almost nobody was reporting his returns. I wonder why? :oops: I'm sure that many are reporting annualized (!!!) money-weighted returns for a 3-month period (XIRR), instead of cumulative time-weighted returns for such a short time period. I thought that by providing an easy-to-use spreadsheet, people would start learning about the proper way to measure and report returns. I have obviously failed. Past returns are mostly useless . They don't tell us anything about future returns. The only number that really matters is our portfolio balance, which mostly depends on past contributions, and only partly depends on past returns. I'm done participating to this thread. I don't want to encourage people t...
- Fri Apr 01, 2016 7:39 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
- Replies: 5248
- Views: 899584
Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
Return for the year so far is at -5.3%. Half of my holdings are in British Pounds, which dropped 10% vs CAD. A third is in USD, which dropped 5%. When counted in the "native" currency the holdings' value has increased for the year.
Recent money-weighted return is ever so slightly better than time-weighted return, which shows that I have been lucky with the timing.
- Sun Mar 06, 2016 1:59 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
- Replies: 5248
- Views: 899584
Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]
YTD: -9.26% (time weighted)
February: - 2.81% (time weighted)
3 month: - 8.28% (time weighted)
Since 2002: 7.00% (money weighted, annual compound return).
February: - 2.81% (time weighted)
3 month: - 8.28% (time weighted)
Since 2002: 7.00% (money weighted, annual compound return).
- Sun Feb 21, 2016 10:15 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
Wow. Impressive numbers.
- Sun Feb 21, 2016 6:46 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
In my opinion, comparing time weighted returns with historic events would be more accurate than looking at XIRR for this purpose. They'll be similar though if the contributions are relatively small.
- Sat Feb 20, 2016 2:56 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
Comparing Time weighted return to money weighted return tells you how lucky or unlucky you are with your timing. Not particularly useful, but neither is comparing time weighted returns to anything, if you are investing in an index.
- Sat Feb 20, 2016 11:56 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
Also money-weighted and time-weighted returns were fairly similar, with differences of 0.1% - 0.3%, depending on the period.
- Sat Feb 20, 2016 11:51 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
FYI, I am automatically recording daily values of my portfolio (it's a bunch of ETFs). These data are only available for 4 months, going back to October 2015.longinvest wrote:
This spreadsheet provides a very good approximation of total returns. For most investors, the error should remain smaller than the precision (0.1%) of displayed numbers.
So, I did include a money-based return calculation using XIRR and actual cashflow. For the 3 months it came up with exactly the same value as your estimate which used IRR and averaged cashflow. In both cases the result was -6.6%. Given that there were several large contributions over that period... You are absolutely correct.
- Sat Feb 20, 2016 8:00 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
True. Then again, nothing other than the actual values of the funds has any practical use. It's fun thoughlonginvest wrote:I only see bad ways to use such information.
One of the main reasons I contributed the spreadsheet to the Bogleheads was to encourage members to stop comparing their XIRR (money-weighted) returns, which simply does not make any sense, mathematically.
- Sat Feb 20, 2016 7:57 am
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
Right, but I wonder if it's at the price of accuracy... Say if one were to receive a large bonus or to invest an inheritance during market turmoil - what would be the impact? Another option would be to include the actual dates of contributions and to use XIRR.longinvest wrote: The money-weighted return is calculated using IRR, as it is based on regular monthly data.
- Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:20 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
Also... Can I ask why aren't you using XIRR? Thanks.
- Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:10 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
1. - Yes, thanks. Corrected the date now.
2. Why not give money-and time-weighted returns side by side over the same periods of time, a bit like you can do in Morningstar under Performance?
2. Why not give money-and time-weighted returns side by side over the same periods of time, a bit like you can do in Morningstar under Performance?
- Fri Feb 19, 2016 12:06 pm
- Forum: Investing - Theory, News & General
- Topic: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
- Replies: 444
- Views: 123264
Re: A Returns Spreadsheet for Bogleheads
The spreadsheet is awesome - thank you very much!
I maintain a spreadsheet in Google Docs, which automatically logs daily values. Combined it with your Returns spreadsheet, so that I don't need to keep recording monthly prices for each account.
A couple of suggestions:
- Statement "Portfolio return as of 19 Feb 2016, 1 month..." is a bit misleading. It's really return for 1 month up to January 31 2016.
- Would be nice to have money-weighted returns side by side with time-weighted returns so that one can evaluate how good he is at "timing the market".
I maintain a spreadsheet in Google Docs, which automatically logs daily values. Combined it with your Returns spreadsheet, so that I don't need to keep recording monthly prices for each account.
A couple of suggestions:
- Statement "Portfolio return as of 19 Feb 2016, 1 month..." is a bit misleading. It's really return for 1 month up to January 31 2016.
- Would be nice to have money-weighted returns side by side with time-weighted returns so that one can evaluate how good he is at "timing the market".