What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

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travellight
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by travellight »

Portfolio is up 16% ytd, 90/10.

Net worth is up 3.8% ytd.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by wander »

Mine is doing pretty well. Best performance fund is VINEX with 32% YTD return.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by stimulacra »

Up 13.5%. 70% stocks, 25% bonds, 5% gold.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by rustymutt »

I weighed in this morning at 230, up 5 pounds. Back to my diet.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

rustymutt wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 7:47 am I weighed in this morning at 230, up 5 pounds. Back to my diet.
Last office visit 208, I am down 13 pounds year to date :) .
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by best2u »

Up 14.75%. My guru says to expect another buying opportunity next year. I will enjoy this while it lasts. :sharebeer
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TheTimeLord
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

best2u wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:42 am Up 14.75%. My guru says to expect another buying opportunity next year. I will enjoy this while it lasts. :sharebeer
Doesn't he say that every year?
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by willing2try »

+18.1% 80/20
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by czeckers »

Had to look it up. 12.1% YTD. AA is in my signature line.

Value tilt and REITs have been a drag on the portfolio since 2009. International had also been a drag but has had positive tracking error in the last year or two. This is life when you tilt away from the market portfolio.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by best2u »

TheTimeLord wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:58 am
best2u wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:42 am Up 14.75%. My guru says to expect another buying opportunity next year. I will enjoy this while it lasts. :sharebeer
Doesn't he say that every year?
No he doesn't. The last buy he issued was Feb of 2016. There will not be one issued for 2017 as it is unlikely that even if the market were to crash yet this year (unlikely) there will be enough time for market action to indicate a reasonable buying opportunity.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

best2u wrote: Fri Oct 06, 2017 3:07 am
TheTimeLord wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:58 am
best2u wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 10:42 am Up 14.75%. My guru says to expect another buying opportunity next year. I will enjoy this while it lasts. :sharebeer
Doesn't he say that every year?
No he doesn't. The last buy he issued was Feb of 2016. There will not be one issued for 2017 as it is unlikely that even if the market were to crash yet this year (unlikely) there will be enough time for market action to indicate a reasonable buying opportunity.
I think you missed the joke because there is a buying opportunity in the vast majority of years. Now it sounds like you are defining a something around crash as a buying opportunity, unfortunately while I know of a definition of a correction and a bear market I am unfamiliar with the definition of a crash. Can you clarify what your guru is actually predicting when they say buying opportunity, what are the parameters of this event. From your post there seems to be some sort of time/confirmation component.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by best2u »

Sorry I missed your joke. Without the smilie I didn't know your intentions were just to be funny.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by MnD »

stimulacra wrote: Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:01 am Up 13.5%. 70% stocks, 25% bonds, 5% gold.
Up 13.5% 70% stocks, 30 % fixed income.
Global market cap on equity, mostly stable value on fixed income.
XIRR return.
70/30 AA for life, Global market cap equity. Rebalance if fixed income <25% or >35%. Weighted ER< .10%. 5% of annual portfolio balance SWR, Proportional (to AA) withdrawals.
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FelixTheCat
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by FelixTheCat »

Up 9.22% YTD 41% Bonds 9% International 50% Domestic
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by EJS22 »

13.47%
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by richard37 »

Up 14.96% YTD. 80/20 portfolio with 30% of stocks in international and emerging markets.
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thedeadlybishop
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by thedeadlybishop »

15.22% based on NAV for 100% equities with value tilt and 30% ex-US
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randomizer
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by randomizer »

At 14.7%, looks like I am underperforming. Better start reaching for some more yield before the market goes into free-fall. 😂
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Papajoe56 »

17.45%
Suman
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Suman »

20% excluding transactions in 2017.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Texflier »

13.28% YTD
24.10% last 4 quarters

I've got this market right where I want it. :P
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by MrLogic »

ROI YTD +8.07% (Quicken)
50/50 Allocation
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Garco
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Garco »

October 6, 2017

Portfolios are all over the place.

At end of September, total return in my core port (403b retirement fund, ~45% equities) is +10.0% YTD.

My supplemental, smaller, and more aggressive (~80% equities) supplemental ports YTD (Oct. 6): +14.7%, +15.7%, and +15.7%.

Taxable investment account TR YTD (Oct. 6): +10.1%.
30sep16
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by 30sep16 »

Up 27%

7.5% Bitcoin / 92.5% Cash, a barbell portfolio.

My 7.5% allocation to Bitcoin is up 360%. I rebalance the profits off the Bitcoin every 4 to 8 weeks. It can crash to zero, but I've made that 7.5% several times over so I'm still way ahead of that were to happen.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by itstoomuch »

Fiscal 12 month year, ending 10/6/2017. Currently in Preservation Mode at age 67/70.
GLWB Spouse's Variable Annuities #1-4, with some qualified GLWB withdrawals, and with 3.5% fees= +13.2%
GLWB Mine's Variable Annuities #5-6, with qualified GLWB withdrawals, and with 3.5% fees = +8.6%
Discretionary Accts = +7.5%, current cash ~30%, has been as high as 75% in 2017.
No bonds, All equity, equity variable annuity, & cash
YMMV.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by rr2 »

16% YTD (up to 9/30/2017) with roughly an AA of 60/40 Stocks/Fixed Income.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by sschullo »

6.6% YTD
Not bad for a boring 32%/68% allocation.
VG International is up 22%!
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by hushpuppy »

delete
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

This thread made me curious to look at a longer period of YTDs.

In the 7 full years from 2010-2016 using Beardstown accounting my portfolio increased in value by 13.88% annually. Currently 2017 looks like it will be an above average year.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by doneat53 »

Curious what "Beardstown Accounting" is?

Also, curious how people with paycheck deposits into their portfolios every two weeks, and big ticket purchases on top of daily COL calculate their returns? Seems like the math gets tedious quickly once you have harvested gains, then choose to reinvest those gains etc. Or are the numbers / percentages being thrown out just what Fidelity or Vanguard says on your account home page?
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

Retired, age 72, asset allocation is 50/50.

Total return (share price increase plus reinvested dividends, net of expenses) is up 9.55% year to date.

Best fund so far is Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund, total return is up 23.60% year to date.

Over 10 years total return is up 5.4% per year, best fund was Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund up 8.07% per year.
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ruralavalon
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

doneat53 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:08 am Curious what "Beardstown Accounting" is?

Also, curious how people with paycheck deposits into their portfolios every two weeks, and big ticket purchases on top of daily COL calculate their returns? Seems like the math gets tedious quickly once you have harvested gains, then choose to reinvest those gains etc. Or are the numbers / percentages being thrown out just what Fidelity or Vanguard says on your account home page?
Bardstown accounting is reporting your contributions as if they were a return on investment. Your portfolio size has been increased by the contributions you made, but it's not at all a measure of how well your investments are performing.

I don't know about Fidelity, but Vanguard calculates and reports a personal rate of return (labelled "investment returns") for 1, 3, 5 and 10 years. You have to calculate to get a year to date (YTD) personal return. If you are making regular contributions or withdrawals of a standard amount, then for YTD just divide "investment returns" by "beginning balance" for a YTD personal return.
Last edited by ruralavalon on Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by wadefish »

stocks: 65%
bonds: 35%

YTD: 11.5%
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TheTimeLord
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

doneat53 wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 10:08 am Curious what "Beardstown Accounting" is?

Also, curious how people with paycheck deposits into their portfolios every two weeks, and big ticket purchases on top of daily COL calculate their returns? Seems like the math gets tedious quickly once you have harvested gains, then choose to reinvest those gains etc. Or are the numbers / percentages being thrown out just what Fidelity or Vanguard says on your account home page?
It comes from a mistake made by the Beardstown Ladies investment club in reporting their returns and their claims to have beat the market for several years in a row. I believe when they published their book someone noticed they were including contributions like they were returns in their calculations. Essentially I am, as I said in my post, tracking the change in value of my portfolio from year to year. To me this is the only meaningful metric to an indexer since an index is going to make what it makes and you AA if a function of risk management not the desire to maximize gains plus to me the biggest sin in investing is chasing returns . So if at the end of the year my portfolio is up $10,000 I really don't care about the source because no matter where it came from it is spendable money.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by doneat53 »

To me this is the only meaningful metric to an indexer since an index is going to make what it makes and you AA if a function of risk management not the desire to maximize gains plus to me the biggest sin in investing is chasing returns . So if at the end of the year my portfolio is up $10,000 I really don't care about the source because no matter where it came from it is spendable money.
Makes sense, I agree that without assigning value to (lower) risk these numbers are meaningless.

I sort of do the same because it is simple math. For example for my Mom's account where she just takes RMD's and never puts any cash into the account following net worth over time and adding what she spends for the year allows met to reasonably estimate her investment return.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 am It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
What point does this actual have if you are an index investor and have invested in line with you risk tolerance? Your returns will be what they will be. Not like you are out picking individual stocks or are trading. You have made the decision to take what the market gives and be satisfied with that. When you choose the entire market your returns in any given year are basically luck of the draw, not the result of making superior decisions. Same goes for same cap or value tilts, some years they work some they don't. Beyond ERs XYZ S&P 500 fund is going to perform the same as ABC S&P 500 fund so the variances in people's returns are the results of their AA, which should be a function of their risk management. So in Bull market years more aggressive AA will outperform, in down years conservative AA will likely lead, but neither is right or wring they are just appropriate for a given individual's situation and even then looking historically there isn't all that much difference in 40/60 vs 50/50 vs 60/40 anyway is there?

Getting drawn into competing with other people's returns or chasing returns is imho unproductive and possibly dangerous to your financial health.
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ruralavalon
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

TheTimeLord wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:04 pm
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 am It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
What point does this actual have if you are an index investor and have invested in line with you risk tolerance? Your returns will be what they will be. . . . . . . .

Getting drawn into competing with other people's returns or chasing returns is imho unproductive and possibly dangerous to your financial health.
There is a point. It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)

When in the accumulation stage knowing the personal rate of return on investments helped tell me whether I needed to increase contributions, or was already contributing enough, to meet the requirement savings goal in the time hoped for. (It told me my contributions would be enough, only if I worked longer than I hoped to. Living modestly already we could not contribute more, so . . . )

Now that I am retired and withdrawing from investments to pay for living expenses it's reassuring to know that my personal rate of return on investments substantially exceeds rate of withdrawal. It's not just reassuring, it tells me whether we need to cut back on living expenses, or whether we can afford to spend more on travel or gifts or charities. (It tells me we could afford to spend more if we wished to.) Knowing the personal rate of return on investments each year also tells me that we have avoided the dreaded sequence of returns risk in early retirement.

Finally, it's just interesting to know the personal rate of return on investments. But for me this thread produces no actionable information, it's just interesting to read.
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TheTimeLord
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by TheTimeLord »

ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm
TheTimeLord wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:04 pm
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 am It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
What point does this actual have if you are an index investor and have invested in line with you risk tolerance? Your returns will be what they will be. . . . . . . .

Getting drawn into competing with other people's returns or chasing returns is imho unproductive and possibly dangerous to your financial health.
There is a point. It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)

When in the accumulation stage knowing the personal rate of return on investments helped tell me whether I needed to increase contributions, or was already contributing enough, to meet the requirement savings goal in the time hoped for. (It told me my contributions would be enough, only if I worked longer than I hoped to. Living modestly already we could not contribute more, so . . . )

Now that I am retired and withdrawing from investments to pay for living expenses it's reassuring to know that my personal rate of return on investments substantially exceeds rate of withdrawal. It's not just reassuring, it tells me whether we need to cut back on living expenses, or whether we can afford to spend more on travel or gifts or charities. (It tells me we could afford to spend more if we wished to.) Knowing the personal rate of return on investments each year also tells me that we have avoided the dreaded sequence of returns risk in early retirement.

Finally, it's just interesting to know the personal rate of return on investments. But for me this thread produces no actionable information, it's just interesting to read.
So if Total Market goes down it is not a real investment and needs to be discarded instead of rebalanced into?

My guess is the total dollar amount at the end of the year told you if you needed to work longer or contribute more because you can't depend on returns being consistent year after year. The returns you got for 2016 had no predictive value for the returns you have gotten in 2017. Which is basically my point, it is dollar amount not rate of return they denotes if you are on track. We all wish sequence of return risk wasn't real and that AA X consistently yielded Return Y but unfortunately that isn't the way if works for most investments. I really don't see changing one's AA or investment mix within a category based on what performed well or poorly the previous year as a strategy in line with BH doctrine, Rebablancing or Reversion to the Mean.

I am guessing what is really reassuring is that the returns on your investments substantially exceed your expenses and as long as they do the actual Rate of Return is immaterial. I think for the most part it is fair to say for retirees it can be considered a good year as long as at the end of the Year your balance is greater than or equal to what your balance was at the end of the previous year irregardless of how you go there.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Wild Willie »

sschullo wrote: Wed Oct 11, 2017 7:39 am 6.6% YTD
Not bad for a boring 32%/68% allocation.
VG International is up 22%!
Dat be me. And I sleep very well at night.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

TheTimeLord wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 7:07 pm
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm
TheTimeLord wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 2:04 pm
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 am It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
What point does this actual have if you are an index investor and have invested in line with you risk tolerance? Your returns will be what they will be. . . . . . .
There is a point. It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. . . . .

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)
. . . . .

So if Total Market goes down it is not a real investment and needs to be discarded instead of rebalanced into?
No. I said "cannot give", not "has not given", a positive real return net of inflation.

A money market fund or short-term bond fund currently cannot produce a positive rate of return on investment net of inflation, it does not have that potential, so is not useful as an investment. A money market fund or short-term bond fund is of course even now useful as a savings vehicle.

I see a difference between saving and investing.

A total stock market index fund can produce a positive real return on investment net of inflation, it has that potential, so is useful as an investment.

In December 2008 I sold Treasury bonds to buy stock index funds, and in 2008-09 all new contributions went into stock index funds, all because the stock index funds had the potential to give a positive real return. The total stock market index fund was in fact rebalanced into.


TheTimeLord wrote:My guess is the total dollar amount at the end of the year told you if you needed to work longer or contribute more because you can't depend on returns being consistent year after year. The returns you got for 2016 had no predictive value for the returns you have gotten in 2017. Which is basically my point, it is dollar amount not rate of return they denotes if you are on track.

Your guess is wrong.

For planning purposes and estimating a retirement year to plan around it was important to know the actual personal rate of return I was achieving, rather than just plug into a calculator some historical rate of return that may have nothing to do with my situation. I wanted to know about how many more years I needed to work. I also wanted a planned retirement date because I didn't want to leave my partners in the lurch by leaving with large important projects substantially incomplete.

So personal total rate of return on investment is a useful piece of information, there is a point.


TheTimeLord wrote:We all wish sequence of return risk wasn't real and that AA X consistently yielded Return Y but unfortunately that isn't the way if works for most investments. I really don't see changing one's AA or investment mix within a category based on what performed well or poorly the previous year as a strategy in line with BH doctrine, Rebablancing or Reversion to the Mean.
Of course I didn't change asset allocation or investment mix within an asset category based on the previous year's performance or based on anything else.

Knowing that personal total rate of return on investment substantially exceeded rate of withdrawal each year was reassuring, told me we were avoiding the sequence of returns risk, and told me that we didn't have to reduce spending on travel and other things we wanted to enjoy early in retirement. Just knowing portfolio size would not, for me, furnish that assurance as well as knowing personal rate of return on investment did.

Again personal total rate of return on investment is a useful piece of information, there is a point.


An finally personal total rate of return on investment is just interesting to know.
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Earl Lemongrab
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Earl Lemongrab »

ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 11:12 am It depends on what you are trying to measure.

If you are trying to measure portfolio size, then Beardstown accounting does the job.

If you are trying to the measure performance of your investments, then Beardstown accounting doesn't do the job.
Sure, but a full XIRR is more effort and in my opinion doesn't provide any useful information. If you're using index funds, you pretty much know that your returns will be the index results for your asset allocation. So whether that's 7% or 10% per year doesn't really matter. Your progress toward goals is the relevant figure. That's what the bottom line provides.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Earl Lemongrab »

ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)
I disagree. Personal rate is a gateway to fiddling with the portfolio through performance chasing.
When in the accumulation stage knowing the personal rate of return on investments helped tell me whether I needed to increase contributions, or was already contributing enough, to meet the requirement savings goal in the time hoped for. (It told me my contributions would be enough, only if I worked longer than I hoped to. Living modestly already we could not contribute more, so . . . )
No, portfolio value tells you that. If you aren't making progress toward goals then you need to increase saving. Rate of return does not tell you that. As I said, that becomes "I need to increase my return rate, hey it's the international dragging things down, get rid of it!"
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

Earl Lemongrab wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:31 am
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)
I disagree. Personal rate is a gateway to fiddling with the portfolio through performance chasing.
That's not my personal experience. I definitely haven't engaged in performance chasing or "fiddling".

I am not so pessimistic or cynical to think that others (who both understand what personal rate of return on investment is and know enough to know how to calculate it) will nevertheless misunderstand the result and so be inclined misuse the information.

In my opinion personal rate of return on investment can be useful information.
"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein | Wiki article link: Bogleheads® investment philosophy
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Earl Lemongrab »

ruralavalon wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 11:45 am
Earl Lemongrab wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:31 am
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)
I disagree. Personal rate is a gateway to fiddling with the portfolio through performance chasing.
That's not my personal experience. I definitely haven't engaged in performance chasing or "fiddling".

I am not so pessimistic or cynical to think that others (who both understand what personal rate of return on investment is and know enough to know how to calculate it) will nevertheless misunderstand the result and so be inclined misuse the information.

In my opinion personal rate of return on investment can be useful information.
Besides the obvious you mention, that you need to be above the rate of inflation in your investments generally, what does the rate tell you? Is 7.7% good? Bad? Most people lack any context for the number, so going through figuring it out doesn't provide much information. If you haven't invested much but have a great rate of return, does that lead you to save more? Or give a false sense of security?

Progress towards goals include both savings and investment returns. And as that's what the bottom line, or Beardstown accounting, provides it's the most useful number. The only things I track are real versus target allocation percentages (for purposes of directing new money or rebalancing) and the Grand Total.

So I can tell you that my total portfolio increase for the last five years has been approximately 92%. I have no idea what the XIRR of the actual investments contained in it are. As they are all index funds except the stable-value (the least volatile of course) then the return is going to be that of the portfolio. Should I really want that information, it's easier to use back-testing for the portfolio composition than it is to try to calculate my own.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

:confused
Earl Lemongrab wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 1:41 pm
ruralavalon wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 11:45 am
Earl Lemongrab wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 10:31 am
ruralavalon wrote: Sun Oct 22, 2017 3:56 pm It is often important to know personal rate of return on investments. I am not competing with anyone, and don't chase performance. All of our 5 funds are low expense ratio Vanguard funds, all but one index funds.

If something cannot give a positive real return net of inflation, then it is not really an investment and in my opinion needs to be discarded. (Therefore we currently have no money market fund except the required sweep, and no short-term bond fund.)
I disagree. Personal rate is a gateway to fiddling with the portfolio through performance chasing.
That's not my personal experience. I definitely haven't engaged in performance chasing or "fiddling".

I am not so pessimistic or cynical to think that others (who both understand what personal rate of return on investment is and know enough to know how to calculate it) will nevertheless misunderstand the result and so be inclined misuse the information.

In my opinion personal rate of return on investment can be useful information.
Besides the obvious you mention, that you need to be above the rate of inflation in your investments generally, what does the rate tell you? Is 7.7% good? Bad? Most people lack any context for the number, so going through figuring it out doesn't provide much information. If you haven't invested much but have a great rate of return, does that lead you to save more? Or give a false sense of security?
I was not talking about "most people", I was explicitly discussing investors who both know what a personal total rate of return is, and also know how to calculate that. This supposes greater than average knowledge base.

Other examples which I gave in that same post of uses for personal total rate of return included:

1) in planning several years ahead helping me see that I would need to to work several years longer since we were already living modestly and were not able to contribute more;

2) in planning several years ahead helping me plan a retirement date using an actual personal total rate of return on investment rather than simply plugging into a calculator an historical rate of return that might have no application to me; and

3) in early retirement constantly assuring me that we were avoiding the sequence of returns risk, and so could obviously afford to do the travel etc. that we wished to do during early retirement.

By the way, 7.7% is fine by me :) .


Earl Lemongrqb wrote:Progress towards goals include both savings and investment returns. And as that's what the bottom line, or Beardstown accounting, provides it's the most useful number. The only things I track are real versus target allocation percentages (for purposes of directing new money or rebalancing) and the Grand Total.
Beardstown accounting does aggregate growth from contributions and growth from investment returns to a single number. I don't say that the aggregate number is useless, I just say that the number for personal total rate of return on investments can be useful and interesting.

It's useful to dis-aggregate the two components in my opinion. Knowing each separately helps me concentrate on what I can control.

1) I have broad or general control over contributions and how long to work (during accumulation) and over withdrawals (during retirement). Food, clothing, shelter and health care are needs, everything else (gifts, charity, entertainment, travel etc.) is optional, and I could focus on what is subject to control.

2) I have very little control over personal total rate of return. So I can't really improve there. I don't take extra risk reaching for returns, chase performance or otherwise "fiddle" with the investments.


Earl Lemongrab wrote:So I can tell you that my total portfolio increase for the last five years has been approximately 92%. I have no idea what the XIRR of the actual investments contained in it are. As they are all index funds except the stable-value (the least volatile of course) then the return is going to be that of the portfolio. Should I really want that information, it's easier to use back-testing for the portfolio composition than it is to try to calculate my own.
I don't say that you or anyone else must do what I do. Perhaps you are not within 5-10 years of retiring and so wouldn't get the use I did out of this information in retirement planning.

This information can be useful, and is interesting to know in my opinion.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Earl Lemongrab »

Certainly each must choose their own path. I know what works best for me, but that might not be the best for all. There's now a good accounting (sorry) for each side.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by ruralavalon »

Earl Lemongrab wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 4:48 pm Certainly each must choose their own path. I know what works best for me, but that might not be the best for all. There's now a good accounting (sorry) for each side.
Certainly. Earlier on by far the most important factor to control is the savings rate and contributions. Always important to control are expense ratios, and other expenses including tax-efficiency, as well as achieving broad diversification.
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by sketchy9 »

Seems like there's quite a bit of disagreement on "portfolio value" vs. gains to determine increase in value. I personally don't see how including my contributions in calculating gains tells me anything about how my investments are doing. I know how much I'm saving. I want to know what my money has done on top of that. Anyway, these are my numbers for 2017 with the following portfolio (this is an actual, dollar-weighted aka IRR calculation done in Excel):

Total Stock Market 30.0%
Small-Cap Value 10.0%
Total International Stock 15.0%
REIT 5.0%
Intermediate Treasuries 40.0%

YTD: 9.87%
Annualized: 12.35%

Just for fun, I also use the Bogleheads return spreadsheet to calculate a time-weighted return:
As of 9/30/17: 9.3%
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Re: What are you up YTD? [Year To Date]

Post by Earl Lemongrab »

sketchy9 wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:35 pm Seems like there's quite a bit of disagreement on "portfolio value" vs. gains to determine increase in value. I personally don't see how including my contributions in calculating gains tells me anything about how my investments are doing.
Why do you care how they are doing? What actionable information do you get from that? Are you going to change your allocation? As I said, if you are using index funds you'll get something very close to the index return.
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