# What's your annual return?



## Synergy (16 October 2010)

Interested to know what the range of annual returns looks like over the past year.

The XAO is almost flat over the period 15/10/09 to 15/10/10, losing around 2%.

So including current open positions (for those who buy + hold), what is your return for this period? 

To give the results some comparibility I'd prefer if you only included ASX stock results.


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## So_Cynical (16 October 2010)

My memory is terrible so over the last 18 months or so ive got into the habit of taking a screenshot (editing with date and commentary) of my portfolio watchlist every month or so, or when ever a mile stone is reached....anyway i do happen to have a screen shot from last October 20.

Portfolio growth from the 20th Oct 09 to now is approximately 34% including all dividends and profit held in open positions....and that's with no significant unrealised losses, 20 ASX stocks.

LOL and voted the wrong option.  sorry i wrecked your poll Synergy...as if start with the negatives on top.


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## Synergy (16 October 2010)

So_Cynical said:


> sorry i wrecked your poll Synergy...as if start with the negatives on top.


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## wayneL (16 October 2010)

Synergy said:


> Interested to know what the range of annual returns looks like over the past year.
> 
> The XAO is almost flat over the period 15/10/09 to 15/10/10, losing around 2%.
> 
> ...




1,000% pa

Send a measly $5,000 to www.stockscam.con to learn how. (non-refundable )


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## tahpot (17 October 2010)

Here is my portfolio for the last 60 days.




I've got back into trading again after an 18 month break. All % gains are correctly adjusted for deposits/withdrawals (NTA is calculated daily) and are after transaction costs.

Notice the large variability in the last 2 weeks. I've entered a very large trade which has paid off to date, but caused a large increase in the portfolio volatility.

The flat days on the chart are weekends.


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## Synergy (17 October 2010)

Hi Tahpot,

Is MHM the only stock you're holding?

Certainly makes for a pretty picture...


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## tahpot (17 October 2010)

For the first 40 days I was trading RHM, GUF, BTU and a couple of others. As of ~15 days ago I entered MHM with 98% of the portfolio.

This wasn't the original plan, but I was watching it before it went nuts and could see it was about to fly, especially with the $3 price target announcement and increased to "all in". This short-term trade has turned into a longer term hold. (Well, longer term for me anyway)


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## brty (18 October 2010)

tahpot,



> I've got back into trading again after an 18 month break.






> As of ~15 days ago I entered MHM with 98% of the portfolio.




I certainly hope you only have a very small 'portfolio'.

brty


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## ParleVouFrancois (18 October 2010)

I've got a return of 122.87% this year (MHM thank youuu), but a "verifiable" return on my blog as 7.56% this year (which only is October because that's when I started blogging). So which one do I pick Mr Syn? Or is your survey already all distorted by Silly Cynicals voting? (Joking about the silly)


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## tahpot (18 October 2010)

brty said:


> I certainly hope you only have a very small 'portfolio'.




I assume that's a reference to risk management?


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## kash (18 October 2010)

I have only re-entered the market 2 months ago and have a 30% gain so far. The aussie market has only gone up 3% in that time, so quite happy with myself. Would love for that to continue.


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## brty (18 October 2010)

tahpot,

Putting nearly all your portfolio into one stock is always a dangerous game, and that is when you do it with 'bluechips'. Doing it with non ASX200 stocks you are almost guaranteed enormous drawdowns at some point, unless you are the absolute best trader in the world (in terms of luck).

You do not have risk management at all with one stock, even if you have a stop level. When things turn bad for a stock like yours, there is almost no liquidity to trade your way out of the position until much lower prices.

I declare that I know nothing about the stock that you have as 98% of your portfolio, it is just the concept of thinking that you can exit at a certain point if wrong.

brty


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## So_Cynical (18 October 2010)

brty said:


> I declare that I know nothing about the stock that you have as 98% of your portfolio, it is just the concept of thinking that you can exit at a certain point if wrong.




Probably not realistic to call one stock a portfolio, or even perhaps 2 or 3 stocks.



			
				Wiki said:
			
		

> In finance, a portfolio is an appropriate mix or collection of investments held by an institution or an individual.
> 
> Holding a portfolio is a part of an investment and risk-limiting strategy called diversification. By owning several assets, certain types of risk (in particular specific risk) can be reduced. The assets in the portfolio could include bank accounts, stocks, bonds, options, warrants, gold certificates, real estate, futures contracts, production facilities, or any other item that is expected to retain its value.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portfolio_(finance)


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## Huitzii (18 October 2010)

I have only been trading with real money for 3 months and I am hovering between 18 and 25 percent gains...I just cant seem to break that 25 percent benchmark but I suppose I will just keep trying to push on through that obstacle.
Im a trader and not an investor and usually will be in and out of  a trade within 2 weeks with usually 5 trades active at a time.


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## tahpot (18 October 2010)

So_Cynical said:


> Probably not realistic to call one stock a portfolio, or even perhaps 2 or 3 stocks.




Agreed, "trading account" would be more accurate.

Risk management is complex, but IMO there are several aspects often overlooked. In particular the risk of not maximising profit when an opportunity arises. If you have evaluated all the fundamental risks, average into a position and are prepared to risk your profit for future gains then you can take large % positions.



			
				brty said:
			
		

> When things turn bad for a stock like yours, there is almost no liquidity to trade your way out of the position until much lower prices.




100% is not ideal even if you think you are aware of all the risks, just for that outlier that comes from left field... and certainly it wasn't my initial plan. The stock was about to fly, so I jumped in for a short-term trade on top of my existing position. It closed up 50% and I was comfortable holding from there, risking my gains, comfortable that I could exit if necessary. I will be looking to reduce the holding shortly though and free carry.


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## bazollie (18 October 2010)

If we are talking about an overall return my super fund has more than doubled. 3 stocks that have made this possible are TXN, IAU and SMR. Other stocks I hold are mostly up with a couple down, but the above 3 stocks highlighted have been absolutely awesome. Without looking I have about 12 positions in stocks. Looking at taking some profits real soon to re-invest into some quality stocks. 

Regards
Bazollie


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## Synergy (19 October 2010)

Have to say I'm surprised that almost 20% of the results are returns of over 100%....

I guess those with big returns might be more keen to vote than the average person and I guess there will always be those with small accounts with very large returns.

Also have to assume that the people with negative returns would be less keen to vote than the average person. So far 90% of those who voted returned a profit over the last year... 

I'd be keen to know account sizes of those with 200% + returns, but understand if they don't want to make that info public.


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## ParleVouFrancois (20 October 2010)

Syn I started with an account of 42kish and it's up to about 93k now, small bikkies for the big boys of investing but I'm extremely happy with the result.

I'd agree that people with a positive return would be MUCH more likely to respond to such a thread, or even perhaps have a overly high estimate of what they actually earned in the markets.


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## Synergy (20 October 2010)

ParleVouFrancois said:


> Syn I started with an account of 42kish and it's up to about 93k now, small bikkies for the big boys of investing but I'm extremely happy with the result.
> 
> I'd agree that people with a positive return would be MUCH more likely to respond to such a thread, or even perhaps have a overly high estimate of what they actually earned in the markets.




Hey Parle, pretty good effort, even without MHM. Not a huge account, but certainly not small. Big enough to be taking it 100% seriously.

Like the blog. Good read. You're holding a good number of stocks too. My fingers are crossed for both CFE and CAP at the moment. CFE buyback starting this week should help things along.

One piece of advice... Try not to count your profits each day, especially for your open positions. Might be fun to do when your account is rising... But not very fun when it's falling and it's likely to put you into the wrong mindset once you have a string of negative days. Wrong mindset means deviating from the plan. If you were trading to make a profit each day, it might make sense, but you're trading longer time frames - day to day is irrelevant. If you're stong minded go ahead, but I prefer to look at my gains on a monthly basis. 9 or 10 positive months in a year and things are probably pretty good.

Now who are these 200+ gurus?
I almost made a 500%+ too..


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## skc (20 October 2010)

Synergy said:


> *
> One piece of advice... Try not to count your profits each day, especially for your open positions.*




In "Universal Principles of Successful Trading" the author debits his spreadsheet with the amount at risk when he enters a trade. 

By assuming a loss it won't be as painful as you actually have to take the loss.


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## ParleVouFrancois (1 November 2010)

SKC my current investment style is a strange mix of deep value investing with a bit of trading on the side (basically if I believe the price has moved too far upwards without the intrinsic side improving as well, I'll sell out a bit or all my holdings). I never invest in companies I don't understand. I've grown to understand several industries quite well over the past few years, and this year the smaller cap resources seem to be the most fertile ground for investment.

So basically, although I would say I do some "trading" I wouldn't call myself a "trader" by any stretch of the word. I rely on my research to give me an edge as opposed to the application of a system that limits emotion in the share market.


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## yonnie (2 November 2010)

Synergy said:


> Now who are these 200+ gurus?
> I almost made a 500%+ too..




I dont think people who make that kind of return would be so foolish as to publish their result and be ridiculed by other people on this forum........
proof! proof! proof!


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## Gringotts Bank (2 November 2010)

There's a line from a movie which went something like this: "when you ask a guy how many women he has slept with, take the number and divide it by three to get the actual number - the rule of three!" :  

But if you didn't bend the truth and polled a result of >50%, wow, well done!!  Can you do it year-in-year-out?  

I wonder whether ASF should have a ranking system whereby posters can have their broker statements independently verified and rated.  That way when people post you know if they're just guys who like to post a lot and play "teacher", or whether they actually get results.  Sometimes the two are mutually exclusive!


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## Kremmen (4 November 2010)

Gringotts Bank said:


> But if you didn't bend the truth and polled a result of >50%, wow, well done!!  Can you do it year-in-year-out?




For myself, the answer is definitely ... No. In the period chosen for this poll, I made 6 major stock purchases. 4 of them are (or were, in the case of ADI) up over 90%. The average rise of the 4 is 138% and they now make up 50% of my portfolio. This does not represent my usual return and I would never claim it did.


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## vincent191 (4 November 2010)

I have slept with over 200 women and I get a >50% return p.a. Just for your information my nose is also about 10 inches long and growing longer by the day.


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## Attolio (5 November 2010)

Nice profit, tahpot


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## ParleVouFrancois (5 November 2010)

Similar to Kremmen, if I take out the MHM buy (my biggest return this year by FAR) and instead count it as zero profit, I've got about a 43.7% return on this year which is far less than what my current return is. So I guess what I'm saying is that the guys making the big %'s are either telling big porkies, had a few good companies they bought (I only had a small investment in MHM and that transformed my portfolio, I sometimes daydream what it'd be like if I had 100% in MHM, but alas my balls are not made of steel and do not drag along in the dirt when I walk ) or don't achieve that sort of return often.

Either that or they are actual stock market geniuses. It wouldn't surprise me that they hang out on ASF, HC, it'd be the type of place to attract these people just as much as it'd attract the bottom feeders of the share marketing world.


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## tahpot (13 November 2010)

ParleVouFrancois said:


> Similar to Kremmen, if I take out the MHM buy (my biggest return this year by FAR) and instead count it as zero profit




Good idea. Although I can't get a precise figure (due to deposits and withdrawals) approximately 50% of my percentage gains have come from MHM. I'm currently on 325% for the last 3.5months of which I can attribute 175% to MHM. All up I have traded 17 stocks over 65 trades with a monthly rate of return of 44%. Clearly this is unsustainable and 3.5months is a terribly small sample space. Still good fun though


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## basilio (30 November 2010)

Interesting idea.  I think it is ambitious to expect people to accurately own up to their results here. It can either look like a brag or be complete BS. And who is prepared to admit they lost big time ?

I have to say I have a similar strategy to Parlevou. I started with a few stocks I researched well (including excellent analysis and heads up from other posters on ASF) . In particular I am a strong fan of LNC. I believe it has an outstanding medium-long term outlook.

Around June I decided LNC had to move when it sold it's first coal mine - so I became a one stock portfolio and did well.

Since then I (also like Parlevou) saw MHM emerge and managed to get in before it totally exploded. (Unfortunately I also had another couple of punts that are still languishing..) Interestingly if I had simply kept all of my LNC shares intact I would be doing a lot better at this stage.

And just recently HOG has emerged as what seems to be a very special opportunity. But we'll wait and see..

Again I havn't the cast iron cajones to make a play in all the  exciting possibilities in start up explorers....  However I have noticed that Crazy Jim Smith seems to be good at identifying opportunities quite early in the piece. Worth a look I suggest.

http://crazyjimsmith.blogspot.com/


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