Gyroscopic Investing

Yes, it's a little early, but close enough unless the next two days are nuts.

I include dividends in my results.

3.7% YTD up here in Canada. Not thrilling, hair-on-fire returns, but I never worried once about my portfolio this year... just happily averaged in at the end of each month. Protection of principle and peace of mind is the name of the game, for me.

9-12% for me, 22% PP + VP with 50% in INT. VWILX (VG actively managed fund accountable for 44% gain YTD). Seems its top holdings are Tencent and Alibaba...

Couldn’t ask for anything more out of the PP as Gold and Treasuries performed well too. PP performance on-par with a 60/40 or 50/50 Boglehead portfolio.

A touch under 12% for me; I started the year at about 17% cash which probably juiced my returns a bit. Were all you 12%+ people at 15% cash, or in some other country or something?

My results for the Dutch/European PP (in Euro currency):

Stocks: +12.5% (MSCI Europe Ex-UK)
Cash: 0.8%
Gold: -1.7%
Bonds: -4.1% (2.75% NL 2047)

Normal 25% average weight: 1.9%

My results are slightly better because I had different allocations this year: 25% stocks, 20% gold, 15% bonds, 40% cash, resulted in 2.5%.

After inflation just a minimal real return of about 1% this year unfortunately...

Kriegsspiel wrote:A touch under 12% for me; I started the year at about 17% cash which probably juiced my returns a bit. Were all you 12%+ people at 15% cash, or in some other country or something?

In addition to varying by country, people's individual starting points (15/35/25/25 vs 25/25/35/15, for example) could make a difference in their annual performance. As could the timing and amount of contributions.

4x25 HBPP @ peaktotrough returned 8.57 (dividends not reinvested).

Individual component returns

SPY - 16.60
Gold - 9.99
LTT - 7.27
STT - 0.43

buddtholomew wrote:4x25 HBPP @ peaktotrough returned 8.57 (dividends not reinvested).

Individual component returns

SPY - 16.60
Gold - 9.99
LTT - 7.27
STT - 0.43

The gold and stock data hasn't been updating on peaktotrough.com for the last two months. portfoliovisualizer.com shows a total return of 9.35% and a real return of 7.03%. Of course that wouldn't yet include today's data.

You’re right I should have noticed.

Kriegsspiel wrote:A touch under 12% for me; I started the year at about 17% cash which probably juiced my returns a bit. Were all you 12%+ people at 15% cash, or in some other country or something?

I will end the year at:

35.56% Stocks (5% VBR, 25% VTI/related, 5% Emerging mkt VINEX)
24.55% LT Bonds (TLT)
29.37% Gold+Silver (25% gold, 5% silver)
10.53% Cash (target 10%)

Cortopassi wrote:

Kriegsspiel wrote:A touch under 12% for me; I started the year at about 17% cash which probably juiced my returns a bit. Were all you 12%+ people at 15% cash, or in some other country or something?

I will end the year at:

35.56% Stocks (5% VBR, 25% VTI/related, 5% Emerging mkt VINEX)
24.55% LT Bonds (TLT)
29.37% Gold+Silver (25% gold, 5% silver)
10.53% Cash (target 10%)

Ahh, I see, I was confused by the thread title and just voted for my PP numbers.

This is my second year using the Golden Butterfly variant. I would give you the exact figure but since they discontinued Google Finance I would actually have to do some work to figure it out. Last I checked it was doing quite well and as far as I recall Gold was still the surprising winner of the asset classes. With the stock run-up of late that might not be true at the end of the year but I still think it did well.

Cortopassi wrote:Yes, it's a little early.

Assuming it will not change drastically on 29th, my classical 4x25 HBPP is 10.4% YTD.

10.4% here, but I continued averaging into the PP this year. Increased my allocation to PP by about 15%, mostly by buying the lagging investment.

Ending the year at:

Gold: 22%
Stock: 27.5%
Cash/STT: 25.4%
LTT: 25%

Have to say I'm happy with the overall performance

Before I answer this, it becomes a bit confusing for me to break down my gains since I'm constantly throwing money into my accounts.

My finance software offers up ROI and IRR for possible metrics. For this year, ROI is around 7% while IRR is around 13%. Even after reading up on these, I'm not following which is actually a better measurement of performance.

Any opinions out there?

eufo wrote:Before I answer this, it becomes a bit confusing for me to break down my gains since I'm constantly throwing money into my accounts.

My finance software offers up ROI and IRR for possible metrics. For this year, ROI is around 7% while IRR is around 13%. Even after reading up on these, I'm not following which is actually a better measurement of performance.

Any opinions out there?

Why the latter off course

buddtholomew wrote:

eufo wrote:Before I answer this, it becomes a bit confusing for me to break down my gains since I'm constantly throwing money into my accounts.

My finance software offers up ROI and IRR for possible metrics. For this year, ROI is around 7% while IRR is around 13%. Even after reading up on these, I'm not following which is actually a better measurement of performance.

Any opinions out there?

Why the latter off course

Obviously that's what I WANT to hear! Lol!

Approximate composition of my portfolio:

53% gold
35% Swiss francs
10% cash

2017 return: just about 10%.

My returns YTD are posted in the Variable Portfolio 20% returns thread.

Libertarian666 wrote:Approximate composition of my portfolio:

53% gold
35% Swiss francs
10% cash

2017 return: just about 10%.

I'm curious about the portfolio, Tech: How are you buying your Swiss francs? ETF? How long have you kept this portfolio? Is this a recent thing?

Sorry, haven't been keeping up here much in 2017. I can say I've paid off the mortgage early courtesy of bitcoin. Great feeling.

Gold: 22%
Stock: 27.5%
Cash/STT: 25.4%
LTT: 25%

That's an excellent return!

MWKXJ wrote:

Libertarian666 wrote:Approximate composition of my portfolio:

53% gold
35% Swiss francs
10% cash

2017 return: just about 10%.

I'm curious about the portfolio, Tech: How are you buying your Swiss francs? ETF? How long have you kept this portfolio? Is this a recent thing?

Sorry, haven't been keeping up here much in 2017. I can say I've paid off the mortgage early courtesy of bitcoin. Great feeling.

I'm also a member of the 2017 mortgage-free club, and yes, it is a great feeling!

The Swiss francs are in Swiss annuities, which unfortunately are no longer available to non-Swiss persons, especially US persons, thanks to the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned FATCA.

One is a gift from my mother and the other I bought in 2007.

They are paying somewhere around 2%, which is pretty good for Swiss francs. However I'm going to surrender them, due to the aforementioned FATCA monstrosity, which has made it impossible for me to make the changes I was planning to make to suit my situation.

12.6% return YTD, with my PP currently at:

28.5% cash
25.5% stocks
23.6% gold
22.4% bonds

Not at all shabby! I think my extra little bit of return came from a higher stock allocation with some help from I Bonds and autorolled T bills. I was close to 30% stocks, but then I "donated" some fund shares earlier in the month to a Fidelity DAF. When I get my tax refund I'll put it right back into the PP.

Don wrote:Gold: 22%
Stock: 27.5%
Cash/STT: 25.4%
LTT: 25%

That's an excellent return!

Those #s are my ending allocation, not return

Surprisingly my Google Finance paper portfolio is still working, despite the shutdown announced for mid November. Here is the pure 4x25 starting January 1, 2016, dividends not reinvested, showing a 10.3% return. The stocks portion is IYY. Ignore the overall return column, as I believe it is price gains only and does not include dividends.