Investment Performance October 2009 (-2.34%)

This is an ongoing monthly update on how our equity investments are performing. Please see this background on the investment tool I developed and how I am using it to track our performance against a benchmark to measure our progress or lack thereof.

Its still a work in progress, any feedback is appreciated and may be incorporated into future monthly reports. The only equity investments not covered are:
1) my 401k which is invested in institutional index funds through my employer that I haven't found a tracking symbol for.
2) investments roughly worth less than $500, simply because I don't have the time and energy to keep up with them. I am thinking I will sell these off at some point and add the proceeds to my current investment portfolio because they are too much work to track.

October Highlights:

Our investments did not perform as well as our benchmark for the month of October.
We reinvest the majority of the proceeds from last month's sale of IBM stock this month. This included 300 shares of GE, an additional 11 shares of Fairfax Financial, and our regular IRA contributions
My monthly returns for 2009: Jan -4.98%, Feb -9.94%, Mar +8.45%, Apr +10.88%, May +4.65%, Jun +0.89%, Jul +9.94%, Aug +4.36%, Sept 3.15%, Oct -2.34%.....

October 2009 Investment Report:

Related in Stocks:

Chairmen Letters to Shareholders (Mar 09, 2014) Its that time of year again --the close of fiscal years means an overload of annual reports including Letters to Shareholders. Two annual letters that I read each year are those from Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffet) and Fairfax Financial (Prem...

Investment Performance January 2014 (-2.94%) (Feb 23, 2014) January 2014 Investment Report: January Highlights: January was a bad way to start out the year, but our portfolio performed slightly better thank our benchmark (-2.94% vs -3.17%). We made our regular monthly investments in our Roth IRAs, and some...

Investment Performance December 2013 (+2.20%) (Jan 10, 2014) December 2013 Investment Report: December Highlights: December was another subpar for us as our portfolio performed poorly compared to our benchmark (+2.20% vs +2.58%). We made our regular monthly investments in our Roth IRAs, and some dividends & dividend reinvestments....

Comments (1)

Nice Site. I was where you were many years ago when I worked at IBM and I reached my goal prior to early retirement. I now have both a registered business and a partnership so I'll give you a few tips.

1. Stop tracking your investment performance every month. What actionable information are you getting from keeping a running total of performance? You're not running a hedge fund are you?

2. Take a look at Fund manager software -- it may help.

3. Set your sights much higher than 2M. When you discussed your goals it seems you have not included money for charity. Why are you so selfish.

4. Stop buying stocks like Exxon. Most of your money can be in ETF's and the other positions should be in stocks were you have an edge. You dont have an edge in Exxon now do you...?

5. A really good method for picking investments if you are an IBMer is to ask coworkers. If too many pals say yes and have an opinion, pass on the stock.

If your portfolio includes stocks which you dont consider permanent holdings --- figure out a price to sell and stick to it...

Look into derivatives --- one of my coworkers is an expert and now runs a 2.5Billion portfolio averaging double digit returns. The small guy can really do well with options esp. if you have the intelligence to work for IBM.

Best of luck Pal

Posted by AltmanBig | November 18, 2009 7:08 AM