How did you do in the stock market last year?
 

I switched to a managed portfolio at Schwab at the end of the year. Too much schit going on for me in the market, and in my life to really track it. Also, JYL made a compelling argument that individuals are at a real disadvantage. I'm down from my October 08 high by about 10%, but for the ten years, through 12/31/10, when I did my own investing I still apparently averaged 17.8%, but with wild, wild swings. I'm 57, so Schwab is moving me into less volatile stuff.

We're more into Bonds than equities because we are retired...2010, exactly 8.94% up. Self managed...by my personal advisor, Cindy.

I am quite jealous of you guys. I wish I had more cash in reserve to play with stocks. I am very tempted to put down some cash in certain oil stocks but the volatility scares the schite out of me! :eek: I am poised to make a transfer in the coming weeks that will double my salary. Hopefully then I can start playing around with my investments. Until then my 401(k) is set at 10% and my employer matches 4%.

I am looking forward to 2011. :)

11%. Jan-Mar were good, took to Oct to get back to Mar, Dec was good also.
Didn't add any funds to the account, other than for our IRA's. Bought kid's senior year of college, blew the rest buying gold.
Jim

Tom, read JYL's posts on the subject (sorry, don't remember the thread). Put your $ in well balanced mutual funds. You're young, put it away now and compound interest is your friend in retirement. I've put $ away every year since I graduated in 1979 (not always as much as I should have), but always something. Getting old comes up quick. 31 years of working, and I have a retirement nest egg that is OK. If you look on the internet, you will find that the "average" self-directed (meaning you put the $ away, not your employer) retirement nest egg in the USA is really appalling; like a few thousand $.

15% of my TRowe mutual funds (automated monthly investment, no management from me).
20% average on all stocks sold (active sharebuilder account, buy/sell monthly).

Lesson learned for next recession: Invest TONS.

One of the best years in a while. Hit a couple good individual stock purchases that were made in 09 but rocked in 10. The mutuals and other instruments did 14%.

My Australian mining shares went well. One was up (Lihir Gold and bought out by Newcrest mining) 39% and another (BHP Biliton) is up 24%.

But including other shares, overall up 17% so I'm happy.

Haven't paid much attention honestly.

10% overall return and we're still about 50% cash but moving back in to stocks and mutual funds in 2011.

14% doing my own buying/selling. Not a great return compared with the markets and some individual stocks, but OK.

I am invested in the Tech sector and took a beating in 2008, doing well now with positive momentum in my company stock.

My accounts are mainly mutual funds with about 20% bonds, but I do have a few stocks like IBM. All those accounts returned 14 to 15% last year.

I'm about 20% cash and that money earned almost nothing. I'll stay about 20% cash, but put almost all in credit union CD's so it's earning something.

Right at +23.3% for my Mutual Funds - but they are still far below where they were in 2008

Right at +35% for my stocks. Mostly Blue Chip - and that does not take into account reinvested dividends.

Early in 2009 - when I took a beating and looked at some of the portfolios some of my mutual funds were invested in - I decided to take a more active role in how my 401K/roll over account was managed.

I've beaten the market....

401k is up 15%, all mutual funds. I'm retired so I don't add anything, and I'm to young to pull any out. My other accounts that are a mix of individual stock's, bonds, cash, ect were up around 10%. I'm living off my after tax accounts so I'm more conservative there.

My net worth is up, it was a good year.

Current YTD: .8%
Last year was around Around 18%.

I consolidated one of my merril lynch accounts into a fidelity account and had a disproportionate amount in small and medium cap mutuals and very little in bonds so I wasn't playing it very conservative.
I only made about a dozen or so changes this past year, that probably helped the performance as I didn't make as many bad moves as I did the year before ;)

70% increase, mostly Ford stock. Since buying it two years ago, it's gone up 500%. Not bad.

I hate you ;)

seriously, good move. Took some gutts but it's paid off well.
I thought about it at the time but as soon as I did my attachments crawled up inside and wouldn't come out no matter what.

In 2010 my 401k was up 17.84%. I have other accounts but it is easy to go on-line and get the rate of return for any period on the 401k.

What is nice is I'm on our companies 401k board and help get to pick the funds. We have a real estate fund and a natural resources fund and by putting a little extra in those two it sure paid off.

Did just fine 2001-2007. 2008 was pretty flat. 2009 sucked - I had to cash out virtually everything (at a huge loss) to survive being laid off so I started 2010 with <10% of what I had in 2007 in the market. I did manage to do okay in 2010 with the little I had in there, plus I put a couple thousand more for good measure. I'm hoping to jump back in during 2011 in a much more meaningful way.

2009 was a bad, bad year. It'll probably take until 2013-2014 (and nothing else going wrong) to get back to where I was before then.

I bought at $3.20, then it went down to about $1.2 +/-. I keep thinking how much more I could have made, but that would be like shooting a 66 at Pebble Beach and worrying about that bogey on the 8th hole. I'll take it.

PZG (AMEX) Paramount Gold and Silver Corp.

Steve

YTD: 1.1%
(Woo hoo, at this rate I should be able to retire in mid October)

2010: 19.7%

I probably don't want to get my exact stats for 2009, as they weren't all that much to write home about.

Do that for 25 years, spread across diversified, low cost funds, and you'll do just fine as many have suggested. Lots of good advice here and on the other threads. As others have aluded, you can absolutely beat the market, but certainly not at "their own" game. IMO, if one knows "their field" (I was in IT), you can hit a few grandslams along with the above strategy and do quite well. I made a few trades last year (damn BP, HPQ, etc. :(), because I became disgusted with some corps I'd owned for years and I made adjustments, but don't "trade" per se...I'm a Buffet type. Normally, I couldn't answer the thread question with other than "good", since I don't preoccupy myself with this stuff, but I came in somewhere around 25% last year, a LOT better than that in 2009, but I'm expecting a good correction any day now...doesn't matter :)

indiv. stocks in tech did about 9% tho I am not a 1 year "kinda guy" - some other accounts did better, nothing over 20% I don't think.

just bought a couple of PV solar stocks...

As a reference point, the broader markets were all up about 10-11%. They were up double digits the year before, too. So while we're still down from the all time highs, we should all have been seeing double digit increases over the last two years.

Did I? No, because I broke my own rule and was out of the market too long. My wife and I just talked about it between Christmas and New Year's and she reminded me to put all the money in my Keogh's money market account into index funds to take advantage of the increases we expect this year. I should have done it long ago. I'll have about half in three stocks I like a lot (and one I hate but now I have it) and the other half equally split between the S&P 500, NASDQ, and a DOW index fund. No international funds. Trust me, they're the next bubble.

Oil and comodities are going to go crazy this year, but inflation will remain extremely low. Manufacturers won't be able to pass on cost increases. Maybe that will change in 2012, but it won't in 2011. Gold will keep going up for a while, but when it crashes, it will be a bubble for the ages.

Anyone want to keep tabs on their investments and compare them to a mixed portfolio of the S&P 500/DOW and NASDQ?

That's how I got started.
30 years of putting away between 10 and 14%, having employer match 7% (recently fell to 6%) it adds up quickly.

Now Sammy, you're not that old...were you that wise at 19? I sure as heck wasn't, but you are spot on :). The STUPIDIST thing I've ever done was to use my first 401K (new job) to payoff a Supra Turbo at age 27...Tom is way smarter than I was I'm sure...

I just hit the big 5-0 and when I dropped out of college and got a job as a millwright I remember saying, "now wait a minute. I put a dollar in savings and they put another dollar in for me? what's the catch?"

I definately wasn't wise when I was a kid, but I've always been cheeeep and hated spending money.

U mean U didn't buy Ford at a buck a share?

You quitter...we're the same age, I just colleged/partied a bit longer :)

This Thread is the blind leading the blind...

That would be interesting indeed. How would you "mix" and compare them? Average the 2 (S&P & Nasdq) or 3 (w/ DOW) returns at year's end and compare (not weighted equally, but a good enough)? Seems like that would be pretty easy for all of us to do next year this time...

Whack! Dang...broke my white cane!

What in the world makes you think Gold is the next Bubble?

Did U hear of QE2? Exactly what is the Fed policy here? Do you know that Bernanke is playing a dangerous game? The risks are high. Take a look at when QE2 was announced and Gold tokk a bump in price...Hmmm just maybe there is a correlation here?

Did yo hear about the Sovereign Debt crisis in Europe and how it reflects on the Euro?

Do you realize the USA is sporting a 14T USD debt and they are going tohave to raise the debt ceiling?

Have you been paying attention to the various state budget crisis's.

And the price of Gold is going to go down?

Ouiet frankly this is azz backwards thinking...The way U should look at it is...

The price of Gold isn't going up, but the value of your currency is going DOWN.

Further since Gold is basically a commodity like oil or corn etc and you say they are going to go crazy...that is inflationary..and your stating Gold is a bubble..is a contradiciton in terms. Which is it?

U say the mfg's won't be able to pass on the prices...have you bin to the Grocery store, or bought a gallon of gasoline lately?

U can't see the forest for the trees...where is your long view...of how the system is working?

Funny - said the exact same thing this morning about gas prices. Your money just buys less.

International funds are the "Next Bubble"..hmmm the growth in the world is in the developing economies and one of the reasons why US corps are doing well is that they are selling into that development....

The US and Europe are in a slow growth mode...U see all that debt they are carrying is like a ball and chain..or in other words a drag on their economies..and one can say thank you to the social democracy advocates for that one.

Now if some were astute in their thinking they could see that the Mother of all bubbles is SOVEREIGN DEBT...

The SD primarily of the USA and Europe has reached the proportions where it is putting the entire Global economy at risk. As a mateer of fact the sytem is so out of balance as to make the system act erractically. For example QE2 was supposed to bring the 10 year US T Bill down from 2.5% to 2% and what happend the 10 year is now trading at 3.35%. It went from 2.5% to as high as 3.5% in about 1 months time...that is a very quick move upward for such a short period of time.

The commodities including Gold and Oil have been on an upward spiral since the institution of QE2...

The Stock Market on the other hand started going up in September when it began to be apparent that the Republicans would take back the House and possibly the Senate. and QE2 was instituted. Take yer choich as far as causation?

So what stage is this setting?

Thanks Sammy. I don't see myself staying at this company for 30 years but I do see myself adding to my 401(k) every year. I learned from a very young age that I don't touch it until I retire. Also, compound interest, compound interest, compound interest.

You know anthing about CHK?