FUND             ENDING          TOT RETURN

VTSMX             $31.86                LATER

DIA_(DJIA)       $122.40               -7.50% 

IWM_(R2K)      $68.29                 -10.04%

SPY_(SP500)    $131.97                -9.61%

GLOBAL          $16,053                -4.66% 

ENERGY          $64,102                -7.44% 

INDEX             ENDING

 

SP500              1322.70

DJIA                12262.89

NASDAQ        2279.10 

Last months results:

 

http://socialize.morningstar.com/NewSocialize/forums/thread/2492924.aspx

 

 

Ben

 

My results are -8.00% YTD using Bobbi’s simple method and -8.24% with Dons and –8.23% with XIRR. 

 

Behind VTSMX 1.48% from June 2001.

 

I have no target allocation goals, but I currently have 3.80 years worth of living expenses in fixed.

 

Current portfolio is:

 

LIVING EXPENSES FUNDS: (15% of total)

 

15%     Cash (Emigrant Direct and CD)

 

Equity: (73% of total)

 

9%            MPGFX (Mairs and Powers)

13%          RYTRX (Royce total return)

11%            DODIX (Dodge and Cox bond fund)

10%          LLPFX (Longleaf Partners)

16%          DODGX (Dodge and Cox Stock fund)

5%            DODBX (Dodge and Cox Balanced)

15%          DODFX (Dodge and Cox International)

5%            TAVFX (Third Ave Value)

 

My asset allocation including cash/bonds in funds is currently:

 

15% Cash

11% bond fund

14% foreign 

59% Domestic funds

 

 

 

Ben

My husbands & my results for our retirement portfolio YTD  -3.96%  Our retirement portfolio is entirely in 3 Vanguard balanced active funds. Have been in Wellesley & Wellington for over 30 years. And in Star for over 10 years. The 1st quarter has been a rough one. Value has had a tough time and Wellington's & Wellesley's equity holdings are in value.  As are much of Star's. As I said last month really appreciate those bonds in the 3 portfolio's.Our drawdown of about 3&3/4th percent yearly to suppliment SS comes entirely from the distributions so we are not selling any of the fund shares to live on. At any rate we are going on a 17 day cruise on April 13th. So hope things will be better wwhen I post the YTD results for April.

Year to date results. Vanguard Star  -6.23%      32.91% of portfolio

                               Vanguard Wellesley -1.74%   33.03% of portfolio

                               Vanguard Wellington -3.92%  34.06% of portfolio

                               Portfolio YTD -3.96%

toni

A cruise eh? Well I am heading to Oregon tomorrow, so look for me along the coast taking pictures as you sail past. Have a nice cruise.

 

Ben

 

 

Hi Toni : We admire your true persistence & patience you & your husband have shown. That is something can all learn from. For many investors in including yours truly, this is has been a rough quarter. It would have been rougher had it not been for one pure lucky timing move of rolling over an old employer 401K into an IRA. This necessitated redeeming all equities (except the employer stock, half of which I still sold & the other half kept).

Thus, my cash allocation jumped from 21% to 38% in Jan08. Other AA pieces were 12% bonds, 26% US stocks, 21% foreign equities and rest 2% other. 60/40 on LC vs small & midcaps, and all still with a strong value tilt (value has not been helping returns much lately). The 401K move and a few other defesive measures in the portfolio helped cushion the blow by cutting the loss from a possible 8+% down to (only!) 5.6%.

Many planners and M* do not encourage such timing. While it could have worked against me, it should be recognized as a legitimate way to avoid the potential nastiness of a market downturn. Alas, portfolio tracker at M* does not track it. I keep up with it by building my own worksheet. I like this kind of tracking error. Best wishes .... Anil

This portfolio includes all of my investments and cash. I am 59, my husband is 62. We are in our 8^th year of retirement with no pension; however, Jay received his first Social Security check in February. This changes our need for income from this portfolio. His SS plus interest on the MM fund (if it stays above 3%) and the mortgage payment we receive each month will cover our income needs. We will still use some distributions from this portfolio for travel, special projects and gifts.

Equity 55%*  
Mutual Funds: DODBX, DODFX, DODGX, FLPSX,  MAPIX
 * 37% of  equity is foreign
Reit Fund:  FRESX
Stocks*: BAC, CVX, GGB, LYG, RRD, UL 
ETFs: DVY, DIA

 Bonds  & Cash 45%:
Active Bond Funds: DODBX, DODIX
Farm Mortgage, Treasury Bills (6 months) and Money Market

Portfolio expenses = 0.49%
YTD cumulative withdrawal = 1.1%

*I forgot to mention that I sold WOR in Feb and bought more UL.

I continue to be ahead of my bogey, DODBX (-8.02% ytd). I attribute the difference entirely to my large position in cash.
Bobbi

Overall, my portfolio stayed remarkably steady in March.  The interest being earned on cash is going down, so I’ll probably make some adjustments soon.

Portfolio %’s and YTD % Gain using XIRR.

Asset        %YTD        Mar08%      Adj%

Cash           0.9%          19.7%
Fixed          1.4%           31.7%
Bonds        -1.1%          11.7%      19.3%
Equity        -7.9%          36.9%      29.2%

Total          -2.6%         100.0%

The adjusted allocation percentages reflect the bond component of the balanced funds.  In March, I purchased additional USVAX, VEIPX, VASVX and PTRAX.  Foreign stocks total 7% of portfolio, 18% of equity.

Current M* Stylebox:
26     26    21
  8      7      6
  3      2      2

Equity and bond funds (w/YTD) are:
USVAX   10.6%     USAA Virginia Bond Fund (-1.51%)
VGSTX     6.3%     Vanguard STAR (-6.23%)
VWELX    5.4%     Vanguard Wellington (-3.92%)
DODBX    4.8%     Dodge & Cox Balanced (-8.02%)
FBALX     3.5%     Fidelity Balanced (-7.29%)
VEIPX      3.3%     Vanguard Equity Income (-7.45%)
VHCOX    2.7%     Vanguard Capital Opportunity (-8.17%)
VWNFX    2.4%     Vanguard Windsor II (-11.20%)
DODFX     2.3%     Dodge & Cox International (-10.78%)
VMRGX    1.9%     Vanguard Morgan Growth (-11.11%)
FIGRX      1.4%     Fidelity International Discovery (-11.47%)
VASVX    1.4%     Vanguard Selected Value (-11.68%)
NAESX    1.3%     Vanguard Small Cap Index (-9.17%)
PTRAX     1.1%     PIMCO Total Return Admin (3.17%)

Neil

 

YTD Portfolio performance 3/31/08

Overall -3.28%
Individual stocks -6.03%
Bond Funds +1.45%

Equity Funds -8.26%

Asset Allocation
Bond Funds 35.00%
Stock Funds 24.05%
Individual Stocks 38.47%
Tradable Cash 2.48%

Style box:

LV 48 LC 16 LG 21
MV 4 MC 5 MG 3

SV 1 MC 2 SG 0

 

Individual Fund Performance YTD
PRWCX  -3.87% TRP Capital Appreciation Fund

RPMGX -10.72% TRP Mid Cap Growth Fund
RPSIX +0.13% TRP Spectrum Income Fund
TRMCX -6.50% TRP Mid Cap Value Fund
VBIIX +2.79 % Vanguard Intermediate Bond Index Fund
VFIIX +2.25% Vanguard GNMA Fund
VFSTX +1.21%Vanguard Short Term Investment Grade Bond Fund
VWNFX -11.20% Vanguard Windsor II Fund

Stocks that have moved up at all or down more than 5% YTD

CAT +8.52%

CL +0.41%

CSCO -11.01% (+1.05% since I added some shares in Jan, 2008)

GE +0.76%

MMM -5.54%

MSFT -19.97%

ORCL -13.37%

PFE -6.61%

RFMD -53.42%

RIG -5.55%

XOM -9.34%

YHOO +24.38%

ZMH +17.71%

 

Comments:  I'm seeing a lot of Style Drift.

Here is last months Style box:

Style box:

LV 14 LC 31 LG 32
MV 4 MC 5 MG 3

SV 1 MC 2 SG 0

The funny thing is that I haven't done any trading.

 

Best to all,

Herb

Anil,  Good timing. You got a break that time.

Ben, Have a good time on the west coast. We are leaving from Ft Lauderdale going to Savona, Italy on a Costa repositioning cruise so will not be on the west coast.

toni

PS; Posted this post on the 2/29/08 thread by mistake.

First, though, I have a correction to report for last month's returns...

Instead of being up +2.09% YTD for Feb 2008, my 401k was DOWN -5.19%.

For my March data, I have again triple-checked my numbers...

1. I started a biweekly DCA in Rick's new Principal 401k on 3/12 as soon as his money came in.
2. I got VISA on the IPO in my Schwab 401k. My price per share was 44. Yippee!!
3. I closed out some emerging market stuff to raise cash for 2. above. I figured that I needed to balance any possible ramifications with speculation. You might not view VISA as speculation, but IPOs are notorious for wildness --more down than UP.
4. I decided to take advantage of weakness & diversify my Royce assets a bit more. I moved a portion of my RYTRX and also a portion of my RYFSX into RYDVX. RYDVX's goals are quite similar to RYTRX, but RYDVX is much more focused. Longterm, I think it will be quite profitable and compound my profits from the other 2 funds. I realized profits in my RYTRX and RYFSX shares and got in on the ground floor with RYDVX. (Note... I forgot to include this data when I opened this post and added 4. to it on 4/2.)

I retired at the end of 2001 and I’m using this portfolio for growth and income. I am on track to withdraw 4.78% (of the value as of 12/31/07) during 2008.

This is predominately a mid-cap/large-cap value portfolio comprised of 33 stocks. No mutual funds. No bonds.

I don’t have a target allocation. Right now it’s 77% U.S. stocks, 17% foreign stocks, and 6% cash. I'm close to being fully invested. Although we have some gold and silver bullion and coins, amounting to about 15%, I don’t include that in my portfolio review or tracking. Aside from that, the performance figures are for the whole enchilada.

I'm heavily into retail (seven stocks) and oil&gas (five stocks). Together they make up about 1/3 of my portfolio.

Industry Groups

My five largest industry groups are:

• Retail, 19.6%
• Oil&Gas, 12.3%
• CommlSvcs, 9.5%
• Elec, 8.7%
• Bldg, 5.8%

Largest Holdings

1. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/B), Diversified Operations
   
2. Copart (CPRT), CommlSvcs—Miscellaneous
   
3. Tele Norte Leste Part (TNE), Telecom--Services Frgn
   
4. II-VI (IIVI), Elec--Component/Connectr
   
5. Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), Retail--Home Furnishings
   
6. Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Banks--Foreign
7. Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Medical--Drug/Diversified
8. Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), Retail--Major Disc Chains
   
9. RPM International (RPM), Bldg--Paint & Allied Prds
   
10. SUPERVALU (SVU), Retail--Super/Mini Mkts
    

Performance

March was terrible, down 3.3%. Oh well. Looking forward to April.

MFSFX is My Financial Success Fund. For HO tracking purposes I compare MFSFX with VFINX (Vanguard 500 Index) because the results are current. At home I use the S&P500 TR, but the results for March won’t be published by S&P for another week or so.

                        MFSFX        VFINX

• 1 mo         -3.3%         -0.4%
• 3 mo/YTD  -7.2%         -9.5%
• 1 yr            8.7%         -5.2%
  
• 3 yr          10.4%          5.7%
• 5 yr          13.4%         11.2%
• 12/31/01   10.7%           4.0%   (Retirement)

     All figures over 1 yr are annualized. Bottom line, I've outperformed the S&P by 6.7 percentage points, annualized, since retirement. I'm happy.

 

My IRA 3/31/08 YTD is -10.54%. By Bogey beated me. Here are the result:

 My Port           FSTMX        FSIIX          Bogey**             M* 20678 Funds Ave

 -10.54              -9.51          -8.61           -8.15                 -7.00

Bogey** is 50% FSTMX and 50% FSIIX. My port is 41.11% domestic, 40.80% foreign, and 19.09% cash/bond/others. I am overweight in NR funds(materials, energy) and PM funds compared to S&P's weightings. Thus I am underweight in other sectors. I am very close to fully invested. However I try to keep about 10% cash for "just in case" as CNBC Jim Cramer suggested about two weeks ago. Since my YTD is the worst so far listed, so I should feel bad (or stupid!), but I don't feel as bad as I felt in January.

I hear Ben is heading to Oregon. I too is heading to Southern Oregon for the summer (from Arizona) very soon. I will be in such "un/under developped place" that I may not be able to access this forum as often as I did during this winter, but I shall try to visit this forum as much as I can. Till next time, KM

Since 1 June 2001

Actual Return = +44.6%          Relative to VTSMX = +48.5%

YTD

Actual Return = +3.0%            Relative to VTSMX = +14.5%

Current Allocation

Muni Bond Funds = 48.9%

Equities = 20.6%

PCRDX = 10.5%

EWJ = 9.8%

Cash = 10.2%

Transactions this month

Finally gave up on PFE and sold the remainder for a loss.  Proceeds went into more muni bond funds - figure these are down artificially relative to interest rates and should recover by year end. Still have unusually large cash balance after selling 40% of gold fund 5 weeks ago. Gold now looking interesting again.

Don

Year-to-date down 0.3%

                                        Actual     Target

 

Cash, Bills, Notes, Bonds                            34%

Cash & equivalents                        3.0%

Treasury inflation-protected securities  26.2%       24%

TFI                                       3.8%

Salon note                                2.0%

 

Global Real Estate; Commodities                      33%

VNQ                                      10.3%       10%

WPS                                       7.8%        8%

PCH + PCL + RYN                           4.9%        5%

PCRIX                                     8.9%       10%

 

Global Businesses & Infrastructure                   33%

VYM                                      10.1%       10%

PID                                       8.1%        8%

ACAS + AINV + MCGC                        4.9%        5%

IGF                                      10.0%       10%

 

Sold 100% of RWX. Used proceeds to purchase WPS. (Tax loss harvest started.)

 

Sold 100% of ALD. Used proceeds to purchase AINV. (Tax loss harvest completed. I will keep AINV.)

 

Rebalanced PCRIX back down to its target. (The subsequent commodity sell-off took it down another 10+%, as shown above.)

 

Sold 100% of DVY. Used proceeds to purchase VYM. (Breakeven transaction. Opportunistic switch to VYM.)

 

Used the month’s major down days to add to PID, MCGC and IGF.

 

---------------

 

ACAS    American Capital Strategies Ltd

AINV    Apollo Investment Corporation

ALD     Allied Capital Corporation

DVY     iShares Dow Jones Select Dividend Index Fund

IGF     iShares S&P Global Infrastructure Fund

MCGC    MCG Capital Corporation

PCH     Potlatch Corp

PCL     Plum Creek Timber Co Inc

PCRIX   PIMCO CommodityRealReturn Strategy Fund

PID     PowerShares International Dividend Achievers ETF

RWX     SPDR DJ Wilshire International Real Estate ETF

RYN     Rayonier Inc

TFI     SPDR Lehman Municipal Bond ETF

VNQ     Vanguard REIT Index ETF

VYM     Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF

WPS     iShares S&P World Ex-U.S. Property ETF

 

Mike

 YTD     -3.15%

Cash    24.66%

U.S.     24.81%

Foreign 16.19%

Bonds   34.15%

Other        .19% 

26  26  33

06  05  02

01  02  00

Both my wife and I are retired with S.S.

Syd 

 

Name	1 Year	3 Years	5 Years
Vanguard Mutual Fund Assets	0.9%	4.3%	6.4%
Total Assets	0.9%	4.3%	6.4%

Name
Short-term reserves
Vanguard Prime Money Mkt Fund	61.60%
Vanguard Prime Money Mkt Fund	23.30%
Subtotal	84.90%

Name
Other investments
Money Market Investor	15.10%
Subtotal	15.10%
Total	100.00%

Year to date my total portfolio is down -4%  as opposed to my contest portfolio being down -9%.   However, that would include contributions which would distort things to the positive side by 1% per quarter.  So I'm roughly down -5% once contributions are extracted.  still much better than my contest portfolio which is a group of funds I selected because they are supposed to do better in a recession historically! So much for my market timing.  Even when I can pick a recession I can pick what will do best in the recession.

 

My real live portfolio is made up of a buy and hold index funds domestic and foreign, Bonds, and a small percentage in Gold and Real estate.   The rising gold was pretty much offset by falling real estate but the account that holds those two is up a bit so I've made more than I've lost there.  It seems like every time real estate does well, gold falls down and visa versa so they seem to offset each other at this time.

Sold: NMYAX and DODFX.

Bought:PNRZX.

Down 8.46% after yesterday (4/1/2008).

Ron.

- 1.024%

Hi Ben,

 

2008 Results*(-2.94%)

*Results of net of all fund expenses and 401k plan administration fees (see below).

 

Long-Term Results (as of 03/31/2008)

 

Fund Inflows in March 2008

January contributions were as follows: MIPYX (52%), OYRDX (25%), FCNTX (12%), VIPSX (10%), and MIEDX (1%).

Projected Fund Inflows for April 2008

Currently April 2008 401k contributions will be allocated to OYDRX (60%), FCNTX (29%), and MIPYX (11%) to get my large cap core/growth, large cap value, and inflation-protected bond allocations closer to their targets. All allocations are within the 5/25 rule as shown on following table.

Portfolio as of April 1, 2008

 

 

YTD Returns of Currently Held Funds