I always like to track ytd at the end of each quarter (used M* ytd as tracking device) and came up with very few surprises but a few revelations on my portfolio. I will be the first to admit I trade a small part of portfolio,generally sectors as they wane or I take profits in some areas that have sudden dramatic rises, but most of my portfolio I use a buy and hold strategy. Im 66 and have a rather aggressive portfolio, with most of my bond exposure in taxable accounts (yes I know that is not the best place, but much of it is from proceeds of bonds I inherited). Im 70/30 equity/bonds or cash. Have a total of 32 etfs and managed funds with a few stocks for good measure.
What I found out was 10 of my funds had a 20% or more return ytd, 11 funds 10% to 19% and 11 funds 1-10% return. The last category were my bond funds, small cap and reits, no surprise there. My conclusion is that it seems well balanced aggressive vs conservative. The four that did the best were PRGTX, MSEQX, CMTFX and OSMYX, each had 30% + returns. I did sell my biotech fund FBITX in early spring, reinvested proceeds into IHI (Medical Devices) and as it turns out, mighthave been better to hold biotech, but I do like IHI. I am still a bit overweight in healthcare, just in more diversified hc funds. I was a bit surprised by my bond funds doing okay, better than I expected, putting trust into managed funds vs etfs in that space.
There were many days I was tempted to dump my consumer staples, and even though they are more or less in the dumper, kept most of it, just lightened it a bit. My biggest disappointment I think was my bank fund, but at least im positive ytd although not by much.
Hoping some others post some of their own revelations, mistakes or good moves for MFO members to see, thought it might be an interesting thread.
Comments
US equity 44%
Foreign equity: 11
Bonds of all sorts: 35
"other" 2
CASH: 8
PRWCX has been my best decision, since I started investing in 2002. I'm 63, just started taking SS. MAPOX is lagging its category THIS year, but I DO like the longer-term numbers. Also own small-cap MSCFX, in the same fund family. My (TRP) PRDSX is doing much better than MSCFX this year. But PRDSX is a "quant" fund.
I make my moves generally after the New Year, when all cap gains and distributions have been made. PRIDX is on fire, this year, so far. Glad I got into it, in early 2016.
PTIAX will be added, for the hefty monthly pay-outs, as soon as I can do it. And I'm still riding a single-stock position through DSPP: PNM. I took profit a little while ago. We're doing a bunch of traveling, this year and next. But I plan to continue dollar-cost-averaging into PNM again, and also want to add BMTC (Bryn Mawr Trust) through DSPP, too.
SFGIX has disappointed, but it's SUPPOSED to be rather conservatively run, in that riskier EM slot. It's Just 2.42% of portf. at this point.
When it comes to investing wisely, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
"Horse To The Water." From "Concert For George:" 2002. Royal Albert Hall, 1 year after G. Harrison's death. Song co-written by George Harrison and his son, Dhani Harrison. Dhani appears stage-right to Sam(antha?) Brown, who's singing. Looks just like the old man, eh? ENJOY!
Thanks for opening the thread about a subject that should interest many. I am not going to comment on what I have been doing within my own portfolio for I feel I have written perhaps more than I should have about it in other threads. I do wish to complement you on having a plan and first looking at what you have through Xray before tweaking. I'm thinking to many investors tweak before they study what they have before they make changes in their positioning. Another thing is that you have some funds that have really performed well and that should help cover the lower producers. Interestingly, since I hold a good bit of cash (some of it in a CD ladder) which currently is about 15% of my overall portfolio (not counting what my mutual funds hold) I also hold about 15% of growth type assets. When I average the returns of the two together this bubbles at about what my average overall return has been for my mutual fund portfolio as a whole (A barbell type approach of sorts). This is one of my strategies in managing cash in a low interest rate environment. I use to open and close a number of spiff (special investment) positions with some of my cash but due to current low market volitality I have not done a spiff in sometime.
Do you know what your overall return is on what would be considered a master portfolio that would include all?
Again, the stated returns you have achieved in some of your fund positions are probally the envy of many.
Please keep posting about your concepts and ideas.
Old_Skeet
I have 22 funds and 16 stocks plus the cash in funds and that I hold in my IRA. I won't comment on the stocks except to say I should stick to funds and I'm glad I'm headed in that direction. Like you and others, I check performance but I tend to focus on slightly different things. I view the returns as a reflection of my asset allocation decisions and prefer category rankings when reviewing funds because the results can differ. For instance, 12 of my 22 funds have greater than 20% returns with 3 of those over 30%. Another 7 had returns greater than 10% and only 3 were between 0-10%. However, only 7 of my 22 funds are top decile in their category, 2 more are top quartile, 7 more are top half and 6 are doing pretty lousy with 5 of the 6 in the bottom decile of their category.
My 3 largest positions are 7-10% positions in my portfolio and their rankings are GPIIX at 40, POAGX at 24 and GPEIX at 90 (ugh!). If I screen out large cap emerging markets funds GP isn't doing much better but I'm a believer and the longer term record is still good so I'm not even close to thinking about giving up.
I'm overweight healthcare at 16.6% of my portfolio and that's been working really well especially with my 3 healthcare funds (HQL, SBIO and PRHSX) ranked top 1%, 8% and 32%, respectively. Half of my healthcare exposure is within other funds or a couple of the stocks but being overweight has helped a lot this year.
I'm also overweight emerging markets at 15.7% of my portfolio but while that should make me a big winner this year, all 3 specific EM funds I own (GPEIX, SFGIX, MEASX) are having tough years. Like with healthcare I'm getting exposure from other funds as well, some of which are having great years, but I feel like EM has been a disappointment.
I've had no bonds for years, often to my hindsight's regret, but I count cash in my IRA as an investment decision. Together with the cash in funds I own it's 15% of my portfolio and has been since the beginning of the year in rough terms. Overall, my returns on the 85% invested are very close to the S&P but considering my overweights to healthcare and EM should both be helping as well as getting a currency benefit from a 50/50 split between domestic and international investments, I would have hoped to be having a better year. Which brings me back to stocks...
Presently my portfolio consists of 62% equities and 36% (Bonds and other...Preferred, Convertibles) and 2% cash.
My allocation funds make up 21.2% of my portfolio (VWINX, PRWCX, BRUFX) and they give me a benchmark to compare the overall portfolio against:
VWINX is 38/59/3 (Equities/Bonds (other)/Cash)...YTD = 6.0%
PRWCX is 62/24/14...YTD = 9.93%
BRUFX is 57/33/10...YTD = 9.06%
"BeeX" (my combined portfolio) is 62/36/2...YTD = 11.82%
Drivers of YTD performance have included:
Funds...YTD
PRIDX...27.16%
PRMTX...28.85
POAGX...19.51%
VWO...24.69%
Collectively these funds make up 50% of my equity holdings and provided 7.22% of the overall portfolio performance.