Year-end portfolio review

[disneysteve]

Sorry, meant EM not general international.

Gotcha. I don't have any sub-categories in my international holdings, just a total international stock index. That's what had the 15% return.

[BuckyBadger]

Got about 20% return with a 70/30 stock bond split. (Stocks split 70/30 US/international.) All using only three index funds.

Not too shabby. I'll take the bond hit any day. We're not going to have ~30% returns in the market every year!

Even more importantly, we have no funds with an ER over 0.22% - except the damned HSA, but at 0.62% that could be worse, and there aren't that many options with that one! Some ERs are as low as 0.02%, and a bunch are at 0.06%.

[feh]

Got about 20% return with a 70/30 stock bond split. (Stocks split 70/30 US/international.) All using only three index funds.

Exact same numbers here - 20% growth with 70/30 allocation. We also contributed $80K, and our year end total is right at $1.4M.

[jIM_Ohio]

Knowing your performance is a good start.

What SHOULD your portfolio perform at? Consider creating a benchmark for yourself and measure to this each year.

If you have a 60-40 portfolio, and the S&P 500 goes up 30%, .6*.3=18%. Meaning the equity position of the portfolio should have increased overall portfolio 18%. If the 40% bond position went down 2%, .4*.02=-8%, meaning the bond position lowered portfolio return 8%, for an overall return (expected) of 10% (18+ (-8)).

Choose appropriate indexes to track stocks and bonds... this will help you see if the funds you are picking are doing as well as they could.

[KTP]

Knowing your performance is a good start.

What SHOULD your portfolio perform at? Consider creating a benchmark for yourself and measure to this each year.

If you have a 60-40 portfolio, and the S&P 500 goes up 30%, .6*.3=18%. Meaning the equity position of the portfolio should have increased overall portfolio 18%. If the 40% bond position went down 2%, .4*.02=-8%, meaning the bond position lowered portfolio return 8%, for an overall return (expected) of 10% (18+ (-8)).

Choose appropriate indexes to track stocks and bonds... this will help you see if the funds you are picking are doing as well as they could.

Hopefully you double check your figures for your actual clients Jim

.4 x .02 = .008, or .8%

Overall return would then be 18% - 0.8% or 17.2%.

[bennkar]

Hmmmm... My combined 457 / Roth IRA / brokerage / DRIPs were at $317,000 at the end of last year. End of this year the total is $453,000. If you back out $40,000 that I added over the year in all four areas, you get growth of $96,000 over $317,000 or ~30.25%. If you include what I added over the year, the portfolio increased $136,000 or ~43%. That's such a great return, I will be happy if the market only treads water for the next three years.

[greenskeeper]

QE is great......until the drug runs out then

[kork13]

QE is great......until the drug runs out then

True... Though some of that is likely already priced into the market. Only time will tell, and I'll still be holding on tight for the long haul.

[Like2Plan]

DisneySteve,
You have some spectacular results!
I have not figured our overall results.
But, it looks like my 401K had about 7% (It is mostly bonds, so that is why it is so low).
DH has 2 401Ks. Oddly enough, the 401K that is invested in a target fund had a rate of return of 16%. His other 401K that he just started in 2013 is 100% in a S&P 500 fund had a rate of return of around 9% which seems kind of anemic compared to the index, but that is how it came out with DCA over the year. (His rate of return would be a lot better counting the company match, but he isn't fully vested in the match, yet).

My Roth Target 2020 13%

[srblanco7]

Started the year at $1,120,000. Ended at $1,470,000. About a 30% increase in value. That includes retirement accounts, investment accounts, and 529 plans. Contributions to various accounts were about $100k, with about $70k of that being shares of stock that I received as a bonus. It was a good year.

[kork13]

(minor update)
Holy smokes... I didn't pay any attention to this, but I just realized that I've crossed the line & I'm now a quarter-millionaire!! WOOOO!!!!! Happy New Year to that! lol
I normally check & chart my assets at the beginning of each month, typically around the 4th or 5th to let end-of-month transfers & purchases settle. So when I posted above on 2 Jan, I was actually using my 12-month 4Dec12 to 4Dec13 numbers (I figured "what the heck, no big deal"). Well, it turns out that adding in my growth & contributions from December has pushed me up to a total net worth of just over $252,000!!! (Otherwise, my numbers are essentially unchanged from what I said previously... 43% total investment growth, 28% investment gains, 50% net worth growth.)
I can think of only one appropriate response to this sudden revelation.....

[Caoineag]

We managed to double our networth this year (100.06% to be exact) which was our pie in the sky goal and the last year this is even possible. Our market returns are north of 30% for the year as we are all stocks and have small in addition to mid and large cap (My small cap is north of 40% for the year). The international did not break 20% which dragged things back down to the 30% mark.

I still have a number of years to invest ahead of me though.

More impressive was the amount of obligations we got rid of this year. We spent about $25k paying things off.

[greenskeeper]

True... Though some of that is likely already priced into the market. Only time will tell, and I'll still be holding on tight for the long haul.

so the party has to end once QE is tapered? Unless we QE to infinity and trash the dollar

[LivingAlmostLarge]

32% 401k, not sure about the rest but will see later.

[scfr]

I know this isn't what you asked disneysteve, but net worth increased 7.9%. Market performance and other passive income helped, but so did new savings.