CAN YOU BEAT MY PORTFOLIO? Are you one of the rare individuals on ET who really net more than you lose. If so ,can you beat a passive portfolio on a long term basis? Hello, Iâm Index Piker and this journal/ challenge stems from a thread I posted a couple weeks ago âthe sad truth about tradingâ asserting the following: This fact appeared to cause considerable consternation among some ET members generating some rather vociferous disparagement and calls for proof concerning my personal portfolio. So here is my CHALLENGE. 1) How many of you traders can match or beat my portfolio* returns this calendar year and going forward? 2) If you can beat my portfolio this year ,how long can you keep that up? 3) Is your margin of outperformance worth all that time and effort? *Hereâs the deal with my portfolio. I have a relatively passive portfolio of an aggressive nature, which consists of 2 accounts that I treat as one. One is a regular tax deferred IRA which consequently allows small cash contributions and the other is a self directed 401k profit sharing plan. I will disclose purchase, sale, deposit, gain , loss amounts and occasional performance information . Good Luck I hope to show that decent returns are indeed available(in excess of 15% annualized) with the following concepts in mind: 1) keep costs low, minimal activity 2) diversification to eliminate idiosyncratic security risk 3) correctly identifying your own risk level 4) control your emotions so as to enable you to stick with your plan(which should be written). As a general note, evidently performance graphs are 1 day behind the close (Fridays performance graph is not available until Saturday.) PHP: Profit sharing contribution 11/27/2007 $200 3/25/2009 $37,257 4/21/2009 $10,000 5/13/2009 $10,000 6/29/2009 $12,000 Sum $69,457 11/6/09 108,610.54 closing balance Net gain $39,153 or 56.3% PHP: IRA 11/14/08deposit $343,220.81(transfer contribution) Opening balance 1/1/09 $366,819 Closing balance 11/06/09 $737,198 Net gain since 1/1/09 $370,379 or 100.97% Combined net gain 409,532 combined opening value 436,276 gain of 93.87% As you can see my net appreciation thus far this year is in excess of 90%. I certainly don't expect this rate of gain to continue , nor do I expect all time periods to be positive. However I do expect to outperform 98%+ of ET posters without claims of (magical) skills.
Congratulations on being a profitable trader, and for reaching 90% in one year. I prefer strategies that net 90% over time per MONTH myself, but any profitable trader deserves a hurrah for beating the odds against him.
good for you. Im not a good trader, but I am also in the 'club' of having made more money than ive lost in my 4 years of trading. Are you a technical trader/chartist out of interest? trading from charts seems to be out of favour at the moment, among the trading forums I frequent (saying that there is no 'edge' in it). Although, im not sure what else there is other than Fundamental analysis, or maybe time+sales scalping?? It seems to be a bit of a secret aparently. I trade price action from charts myself and it works for me. Keep it up.
Congratulations on your profits. I don't consider myself a trader, I'm going to attempt to keep this journal in order to offer supporting evidence that passive indexing is superior to active trading on a risk adjusted basis. While I have an unusually aggressive portfolio for a passive indexer it probably assumes more risk like traders regularly utilize. Therefore I see my portfolio as a suitable benchmark or example of what is available with a relatively passive portfolio. (I've made no sales since inception)
Past performance is no guarantee of future result. Congratulations on putting together the nest egg. Hope you don't lose it all in the next market downturn. BTW, this isn't a "trading challenge". It's your self-agradizing commentary on how you are doing with your nest egg at this currnet juncture of the the S&P500's rise on a ballon made of lots of hot air.
I'm sorry I think you should complain about the ET servers, evidently they omitted the snapshots of your returns that you posted. You did man up and post them didn't you? I mean it would be the height of cowardice and hypocrisy to demand my proof ad-nauseam and offer bupkiss of your own, wouldn't it?
What exactly do you mean my passive portfolio? I'm not sure we're on the same page with this so please clarify.