I have to block out some information for security reasons.
I opened my joint account with after I got married in 2008. The account was opened officially sometime in early 2008. So far I have been very satisfied with my returns during these turbulent markets. Here are my returns as of 12/31/2010:
2010: 25.85%me 15.06%% (S&P 500)
I wish I had exact numbers for 2009 but unfortunately my broker does not provide them. I spent some time doing the math and estimated a return of 50-60%.
2008 I do not have exact numbers but they were horrendous to say the least.
Since inception 29.95% early 2008 vs. ~-6% S&P 500
My brokerage (hopefully, they are not sure it is possible yet) will mail me a statement with returns for the year. I pride myself on honesty but would do this just so my readers have proof I am honest. I will upload it and obviously all sensitive information will have to be blocked out.
The numbers are calculated by my broker are cumulative (only applies to since inception) and include cash. Before writing these numbers up I wanted to get as much information about how they calculate returns. I called up my broker and spent about half an hour on the phone to try to get as much info as possible.
There are different ways to calculate rates of return and I can not say I fully grasp how broker calculates it.
However, one thing I did garner is that my actual returns are actually slightly higher than reported returns due to the following reason: I reinvest all dividends and capital gains. Fidelity counts all reinvested capital and dividend gains as cash returns.
For a simple example if on January 1 I invested 10,000 in a stock that pays a 4% dividend. For real simplicity sake I will assume the dividend is annual and was paid January 1st 2010. The stock goes up 50% by December 31st 2010. The total return will be $5200. However, since Fidelity tracks the dividend as cash which is earning close practically zero the total return will be closer to $5,000.
This would not make a huge difference but could add a point or two to returns.
In terms of this joint account; this is my only account I trade in (I hate using that word). In this account I attempt to beat the market. I do not have stock in any other accounts (I do have stock mutual funds though). Any cash I include in the account is cash that might be deployed one day. As I mentioned above my broker includes cash as part of returns.
All other accounts like my IRA and cash are in separate accounts with my Broker or elsewhere. Covestor tracks my returns from broker. I have another account with Broker where I just keep cash in short term Treasuries which is part of the cash I keep and plan to use to buy a house. I do not plan on touching this money for anything else, but co-vestor rips ALL accounts that I have with my brokerage. Since I have an enormous cash holding when including the second account, and accounting for the fact that the market went up a lot since I opened the account it has hurt my returns on covestor (of course if the market goes down it will make me look better). I have basically matched the market on covestor since account inception. Here is the link-http://covestor.com/jacob-wolinsky
It is very labor-some to provide all my trades for the year, but I am going to post an article of all buys and sells I did in Q42010 and a short rational of why.
The article with all my buys and sells in Q4 will be posted towards the end of this week or early next week. I will try to do this on a quarterly basis. Besides the article I will post shortly my next post should appear sometime in April. As always you can find my holdings on co-vestor but like I said for better or worse they do not track me accurately.
What were your returns in 2010? Please feel free to leave your returns below and you can always leave them anonymously (unless you want to brag of course).
