Investment Performance January 2011 (+2.06%)

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.

January Highlights:

  • Our monthly performance barely beat our benchmark (+2.06% vs +2.05%).
  • This marks the 2nd time in 11 months that we have beaten our benchmark, the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTI).

  • In January we made several investments in Fairfax Financial. We continue to accumulate the stock as I love the business and the management team and don't think its overvalued.

  • I started a very small position in Bankers Trust (BTC) a small cap bank that has very compelling valuations on my brother's the recommendation. The stock was trading at something like 30% book value so we will see if it pays off. I'll continue to accumulate if it continues to look attractive.
  • We also purchased more China Fire as the stock fell further I suspect on worries of accounting fraud.
  • We also made our regular monthly investments in our IRAs and Conocco Philips DRIP, and had some dividend reinvestments.
  • Our recent monthly returns were: Jan 09 -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%, Nov +5.83%, Dec +1.85%, Jan '10 -2.34%, Feb +2.25%, Mar +5.88%, Apr +2.54%, May -8.13%, June -5.64%, July 6.17%. Aug -4.87%, Sept +8.48%, Oct 2.47%, Nov -0.96%, Dec +8.01%, Jan 2011 +2.06%.....

January 2011 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 (7)


Hi 2 Million,
what is the meaning of BOM and EOM in your report? trying to see how you calculate.

Will,
BOM = Beginning of Month
EOM = End of Month
I basically use the last trade prices from Yahoo Finance. BOM is really the last trade from the month before, and EOM is the last trade at the end of the month Im reporting. Hope that helps.

Hello,

I am curious that you use the Vanguard Total Stock Market Index (VTI) as your benchmark instead of the S& P 500. Can you explain why you use this particular benchmark?

Thanks!

Jeff,
I picked VTI because it was easy to track and something I thought would be a more broad metric(more inclusive of the entire market and small caps than the S&P 500).

2M,
You mentioned in the past that you were going to liquidate your smaller investments of $500 or less and redelpoy the money into something you had stronger convictions. Given the size of your portfolio now, are you considering moving that minimum threshold up? Seems to me the smaller amounts are getting lost and not really helping you very much. Might be time to do some Spring cleaning?

Golfer65,
You got me - I have been going in the exact opposite of my initial intent lately - I have several smaller investments and not been really cleaning house. Need to give that some more thought - I have found it harder to sell out of my investments than I anticipated. The nice thing about the larger holdings is I can expand or shrink my position without committing with exiting completely. Its a mental thing for me I guess.

I do not understand why your benchmark is VTI. What is the beta of your individual portfolio? If it is less (and you are taking less risk), VTI would not be an appropriate benchmark. Also, shouldn't this be done on a post-dividend basis. That is, if from your individual investments you receive a larger dividend percentage than VTI, should not that be reflected in the return?

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A personal finance weblog of my journey to reach my goal of $2 million + the value of my primary residence.
Current Net Worth: $1,938,393

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