madsinger monthly report

madsinger · Post by **madsinger** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:22 am

Here is a big fat collection of portfolios, with their April 2010 returns, 2010 YTD return, and annualized returns since 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2007 (11 years 4 months, 9 years 4 months, 5 years 4 months, 3 years 4 months). I broke them into four categories, roughly corresponding to 100/0, 80/20, 60/40, 40/60 stock/bond portfolios, sorted by Total Return since 2001. The 3 fund is 50/30/20 Total Stock/Total Int'l/Total Bond. The s&d is 10 each of VFINX, VIVAX, NAESX, VISVX, VGSIX, 25 VGTSX, 5 VINEX, 20 VBMFX. The coffeehouse is a 60/40 described at The Coffeehouse Investor. The Newsletter portfolios are from a newsletter following Vanguard funds. William Bernstein's "Sheltered Sam" is an all stock portfolio which is 20% VFINX, 25% VIVAX, 5% NAESX, 15% VISVX, 10% VGSIX, 3% VGPMX, 5% each VEURX, VPACX, VEIEX, and 7% VTRIX. The madsinger portfolio is my real-world portfolio, roughly 64/5/3/28 stock/REIT/PM/bond.

-Brad.

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                                     CAGR     CAGR     CAGR     CAGR
                  Apr      YTD       since    since    since    since
                  2010     2010      2007     2005     2001     1999
Hot Hands         0.30%    8.55%    -9.22%    2.45%    8.93%   11.34%
Sheltered Sam     2.39%    8.76%    -2.75%    4.10%    5.44%    6.13%
VFINX             1.59%    7.02%    -3.16%    1.60%    0.64%    1.38%
                        
s&d               2.15%    7.32%    -0.37%    4.91%    6.02%    6.67%
Newsletter G      1.24%    6.20%    -1.00%    4.67%    4.43%    8.27%
Newsletter G-IND  2.08%    8.10%    -1.21%    4.25%    4.40%    3.83%
3 fund            0.81%    4.64%    -0.07%    4.40%    3.93%    4.21%
LS G              1.42%    5.98%    -2.03%    2.81%    2.74%    3.19%
                        
coffeehouse       2.55%    7.65%     1.77%    4.99%    6.21%    6.48%
Wellington        0.73%    4.44%     2.17%    5.33%    5.97%    6.21%
STAR              0.94%    4.68%     1.28%    4.29%    4.82%    5.55%
Newsletter CG     0.96%    5.30%    -0.60%    4.04%    4.07%    6.21%
LS MG             1.37%    5.26%    -0.02%    3.43%    3.57%    3.89%
                        
Wellesley         1.49%    4.32%     4.35%    5.45%    6.24%    6.11%
LS CG             1.22%    4.59%     1.60%    3.77%    4.06%    4.31%
Newsletter Inc    1.16%    4.70%     0.17%    3.17%    3.99%    3.81%
                        
madsinger         2.93%    8.03%     0.80%    5.14%

madsinger · Post by **madsinger** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:26 am

April was rather volatile at the end, but was a mostly positive month. International was down for the month. Small Caps had a very positive month (up over 5%) and REITs (over 7%). This helped the portfolios that tilt that way (notably coffeehouse and madsinger).

Still waiting for the newsletter to post the YTD and monthly results for April on their website.

-Brad.

White Coat Investor · Post by **White Coat Investor** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:27 am

Nice job, looks like your portfolio was the best one for April. gotta like that.

Random Musings · Post by **Random Musings** » Tue May 04, 2010 9:54 am

Madsinger,

What happened to the "newsletter" comparables? Have you been threatened by some little hot dog? Or is the data late or not being received anymore?

RM

madsinger · Post by **madsinger** » Tue May 04, 2010 10:03 am

Random Musings wrote:What happened to the "newsletter" comparables? Have you been threatened by some little hot dog? Or is the data late or not being received anymore?

No schnauzer threats! They just haven't updated their website for April returns yet, and I decided to post now. I'll update the post when they update their website!

-Brad.

madsinger · Post by **madsinger** » Tue May 04, 2010 12:32 pm

I have updated the chart to include the Newsletter returns.

As EmergDoc pointed out, I "won" April! And, isn't that what investing is all about? Winning a one month contest?!? :lol:

More seriously, I am certainly happy that my five-plus year return is treating me very well. An overweighting of small caps, a healthy slug of internationals, a few percentage points in some of the niche-ier places (REITs, precious metals, and emerging markets), (and any of these things could have just as likely gone the other way) and a willingness to sell the winners and buy the losers during rebalancing has served me well.

And, now that I've jinxed myself, I hope you are all doing well with your investment plans!

-Brad.

White Coat Investor · Tue May 04, 2010 12:38 pm

I'm not on top of it enough to check my returns every month. It would be helpful if somewhere you posted the annual returns of each of these portfolios, 2002, 2003, 2004 etc. I know that and could compare my returns to them in that manner. I'm sure you've got that info in your spreadsheet. Would you mind posting it? Even once if it's too much of a pain to do every month.

madsinger · Post by **madsinger** » Tue May 04, 2010 4:28 pm

Yearly returns, sorted the same as the original post chart. I broke this into two charts (1999-2004 and 2005-2009) to not mess up the formatting).

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                 2009     2008     2007    2006    2005  
Hot Hands        21.74%  -47.86%   5.15%  30.30%  20.50% 
Sheltered Sam    30.62%  -37.91%   3.30%  22.53%  10.96% 
s&p 500 fund     26.49%  -37.02%   5.39%  15.64%   4.77% 
                                                
slice-n-dice     26.94%  -30.16%   3.83%  19.81%   9.12% 
Newsletter G     34.40%  -38.40%  10.00%  18.40%  11.40% 
Newsletter G-IND 33.20%  -40.30%  11.70%  16.00%  12.10% 
three fund       26.56%  -30.74%   8.79%  16.60%   8.14% 
LS G             24.99%  -34.39%   7.46%  16.13%   6.88% 
                                                
coffeehouse      20.26%  -20.21%   2.63%  15.15%   6.23% 
Wellington       22.20%  -22.30%   8.34%  14.97%   6.82% 
STAR             24.85%  -25.10%   6.58%  11.64%   7.44% 
Newsletter CG    29.10%  -33.60%   8.60%  15.80%   8.80% 
LS MG            20.33%  -26.50%   7.36%  13.31%   5.69% 
                                                
Wellesley        16.02%   -9.84%   5.61%  11.28%   3.48%  
LS CG            17.06%  -19.52%   6.99%  10.62%   4.45%  
Newsletter Inc   21.90%  -24.10%   3.80%  10.60%   6.20%  
                                                
madsinger        26.90%  -28.85%   5.27%  16.66%   9.09%


                  2004    2003    2002     2001    2000    1999
Hot Hands        31.80%  44.50%   -9.80%  13.70%  18.00%  28.80%
Sheltered Sam    18.49%  36.64%  -14.08%  -4.84%   1.67%  17.76%
s&p 500 fund     10.74%  28.50%  -22.15% -12.02%  -9.06%  21.07%
                                                
slice-n-dice     17.67%  31.67%  -10.17%  -3.95%   2.50%  17.45%
Newsletter G     15.70%  32.00%  -17.80%  -6.40%  20.40%  36.30%
Newsletter G-IND 15.10%  28.20%  -16.90%  -2.40% -15.60%  21.40%
three fund       13.36%  28.57%  -13.35%  -9.84%  -7.69%  20.73%
LS G             12.58%  28.52%  -15.84%  -8.86%  -5.44%  17.32%
                                                
coffeehouse      13.80%  23.54%   -5.56%   1.88%   7.25%   8.30%
Wellington       11.17%  20.75%   -6.90%   4.19%  10.40%   4.41%
STAR             11.60%  22.70%   -9.87%   0.50%  10.96%   7.13%
Newsletter CG    13.00%  28.90%  -16.40%  -3.50%  14.00%  19.70%
LS MG            10.57%  22.40%  -10.32%  -4.48%  -0.88%  12.01%
                                                
Wellesley         7.57%   9.66%    4.64%   7.39%  16.17%  -4.14%
LS CG             8.02%  16.57%   -5.37%  -0.08%   3.12%   7.86%
Newsletter Inc    8.40%  19.10%   -4.50%  -1.10%  -3.50%   9.90%

Beagler · Post by **Beagler** » Tue May 04, 2010 4:36 pm

The elephant in the room is, of course, Hot Hands. It must really "burn" (bad, intentional pun, sorry) some people to see that trouncing a purely index fund approach.

stratton · Post by **stratton** » Tue May 04, 2010 7:06 pm

It's incredible how Wellesley keeps on chugging. This isn't surprising considering how much better bonds did over the last ten years so anything with 60% in bonds will look great.

Paul

Robert T · Post by **Robert T** » Tue May 04, 2010 7:41 pm

.
Thanks Brad.

FWIW - YTD performance (according to M*) of the portfolios that I earlier set up in M* http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=46446

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To end April (according to M*)
                                   YTD 

ASSET ALLOCATION 
...ETF                            5.94 
...DFA TM                         6.67 
...Total Market                   2.53 

SECURITY SELECTION 
...Fairholme                     16.98 
...Cumming-Ackman-Lampert        15.87 
...Dodge and Cox                  4.40 

MARKET TIMING 
...10 month Moving Average        8.25 
...Inverted Yield Curve           7.13 
...GMO Valuation                  4.39 

All portfolios have a long-term expected 
average bond allocation of 20 to 25 percent.

Happy to say that my index fund portfolio is ahead of the ‘Hot Hands’ portfolio since start of 2003 (start of IPS) [even before tax considerations]. Perhaps somewhat surprising.

Robert
.

White Coat Investor · Post by **White Coat Investor** » Tue May 04, 2010 8:22 pm

Thanks for posting that Madsinger. My portfolio must be taking more risk than most of those as I am in the top 5 in up years and in the bottom half in down years. Fun to compare though.