Epic fails

I like the title of those youtube videos.

It also aptly describes some of the biggest blunders in my trading portfolio.

I held BVF (now VRX) for years. Actually had a meaningful portfolio position (well above 10%). Then it did a triple and i sold. Then it went up another 10+ fold from my sell. Its recently fell 70% in the past few months, but even now its triple above where i sold..

Then we have STMP. A similar story i suppose. Held a meaningful position, as mentioned above, let it almost quadruple this time, then sold. Now it is sitting nearly 3 fold higher than my sell price.

I've mentioned to friends that if a portfolio was to be built with say 10% in each of your 10 best ideas and it was to be left alone for years (or a decade) it would likely fair better than me fooling with it.

Well i can't say for certain without a bit, ok lots, of research into my past holdings i will venture a guess that one or two of the above would more than make up for a few of my poorer past picks (ie. AG.un, YLO.t & CGS.t) and help this portfolio beat most out there.

Now i would argue that perhaps these companies above were sold at fair or even above fair market value, but since when does the market ever make stocks fairly valued always? I have had lots of learning lessons while investing, but perhaps failure to hold winners and sell losers has been my biggest. I see EVI.N, VCM.t, & RBA.t have all gone substantially higher since being sold in the past few years. Lesson learned? Only time will tell.

I’ve been following the strategy lab articles from The Globe and Mail.

They started in Sept 2012 and cumulative returns have been 31%, 34%, 67% and 288% (he bought TSLA).
For reference;
The 67% cumulative is approx 19%/yr compounded
The 31% cumulative is about 10%/yr compounded

I then looked at my accounts…

My “trading account” was 19.4%/yr compounded (68% cumulative)
My passive account with mixed mutual funds and a few poor stocks (ie. CCJ) has been 16%yr/ compounded, which is way better than I figured. My Work RPP (yet another separate account has managed 12%/yr compounded (it’s a split of 4 into the indexes) and has been slightly tilted US equities until recently when I untilited.
Lastly I made a benchmark within my passive account above (mentioned in an earlier posting) and included it's return (but it so far has hurt the overall passive account return) was a 1/3 mix of simple low cost ETF strategy.

1/3 VTI, VCE, VAB and re balance when it's (10% or so out of balance). This one has only averaged a 10%/yr compounded or about 31% cumulative.

For yet another comparison's sake BRK.a on its own is about 16%/yr compounded (no div of course which mine above didn’t include cause I don’t reinvest) but that isn’t counting the USD exchange which all above is.


Anyways I found that little math lesson interesting…