How did you do in the stock market last year?

[Hugh R]

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.

[pwd72s]

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

[BRPORSCHE]

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! 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.

[on2wheels52]

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

[Hugh R]

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 $.

[patssle]

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.

[Green 912]

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%.

[Bill Douglas]

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.

[HardDrive]

Haven't paid much attention honestly.

[widgeon13]

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

[s_wilwerding]

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

[shanghai_todd]

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

[David]

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.

[JeremyD]

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....

[dmcummins]

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.

[sammyg2]

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

[ckissick]

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

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by ckissick

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.

[lukeh]

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.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

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.