Month: January 2019

The Fox family’s 2018 investment performance

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2018 was an “interesting” year for stocks.  Everyone wants to think “this one was different” but 2018 did seem to be pretty crazy. 

We had some wild swings pretty much the whole year: from January to December.  Going into December, I was marveling at what a genius I was with my prediction from the beginning of 2018 that the market would be up about 5% for the year.  Going into December it looked like I was going to be spot on . . . and then the bottom fell out of the market and you have where we are now.

Our stock performance

Just like most everyone else, we had a down year.  Of course, since we only invest in index mutual funds, by definition whatever the market did is the return we got.

Investment Ticker % of total portfolio 2018 return
US stocks VTSAX 50% -8%
Int stocks VTIAX 45% -18%
REITs VGSLX 5% -12%
TOTAL -12%

We were down 12%, and obviously that sucks, but . . .   There’s really no “but” so let’s not try to sugarcoat it, but maybe there is a silver lining.  Since the Great Recession in 2008, stock were up about 150% (about 11% annually) and had a 10 year winning streak. 

Dark blue was US stocks (down 8%) and light blue was International stocks (down 18%)

This year we had a down year, so it’s a bit hard to complain.  Historically, stocks are down for the year about 30% of the time.  We were probably due, so we shouldn’t get too greedy.  Still, it isn’t fun to go through a down market, but that’s life.

Notice any changes?

We also made a few simplifying changes to our portfolio starting in late 2017 and continuing into 2018.  At the end of 2017 we sold all our commodities as I discussed here.  In 2018, we also exited our Lending Club investment which was also a disappointment (although not nearly as bad as the commodities). 

That took us from five investments (US stock index fund, Int stock index fund, REIT fund, commodities ETF, and Lending Club) down to three.  If you remember the post on Three Investing Ingredients, I was getting closer to following my own advice.  The only thing still there was REITs.  In late 2018 we finally sold those off, so as of now, we are totally following the Three Investing Ingredients.  It’s nice to get back to basics.

At the beginning of 2020 when you read about how we did in 2019, there should only be two investments.

Inflation

The other thing I always look at at the end of the year is inflation.  US inflation came in at 2.4%.  It’s been inching up steadily over the past few years, and now it’s the highest it’s been since before the Great Recession.  Even so, 2.4% is still incredibly low.

We spend a ton of time talking about the impact inflation will have on your portfolio.  A few years back I even wrote almost a love note to the investing gods for 2015 being a no-inflation year.  The fact that inflation remains very tame compared to historical standards—I use 3% as a target for inflation—means we’re ahead of the game.

Wrapping it all up

Let’s chalk up 2019 to a crazy year and a “bad” year.  But we know sometimes we have bad years.  In the grand scheme of things it definitely could have been worse.

MY 2019 PREDICTION—I think our new normal for the next several years will be a lot of volatility, like we saw in 2018 and so far in 2019.  I never like trying to predict the stock market, but it just “feels” like we’re in for another down year.  I predict down 7%.  Of course I’ll use this as an opportunity to keep socking money away and buy stocks at prices that in 10 years will look bargains.

Putting a bow on December 2018

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The new year is a great time to take account of things in life.  We look at the year just ended, reflect on our successes and failures, decide how this year will be better, make our resolutions, and take on the new year.

I was all prepared to write a few posts on all that, but then the tidal wave that was December 2018 hit.  I posted last week right at its depths, but even the craziness of the last few days of the year require, neh demand, its own post.  So let’s put a bow on that crazy month.

As bad as it was . . .

I posted last Monday, Christmas Eve, that with a bit over a week to go, December 2018 had already become the 4th worst month in the 69-year history of the S&P 500.  Going into that trading day, we were down 12% for the month, and then in an act worthy of Old Testament God, the market plunged that day another 3%.  Just in time for the holiday.  Thanks a lot.

It was bad and we were in the teeth of an all-time bad stock market plunge.  If you think of it as the 4th worst (or 3rd worst after that Monday) month in almost 70 years, you’d expect something like this once every 25 years or so.  That’s a generational storm.  Batten down the hatches.

. . . and how it ended

But there’s a reason that December ends after the 31st day and not the 24th day.  The day after Christmas (obviously markets were closed for Christmas), the markets increased 5% which is a crazy high amount.

Before we look at the larger picture, let’s just reflect on December 26 for a second.  It was the largest point gain day for both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  Also, it was the 18th largest percentage increase for the S&P—top 18 out of over 17,000 trading days since 1950.  Not bad.

Back to the story, so Wednesday there was a big recovery but we were still down a lot.  But the market kept chugging along each day, and it ended the month up 7% for the lows on Christmas Eve.  Let’s not fool ourselves.  It was still down 9% for the month, but compared to where we were as Santa was loading up the sleigh, that’s not that bad.

In fact, while there’s no doubt that December 2018 was a bad month, it didn’t even rank in the Top 10 worst months of all time (it was at 11).  Not that that should make you feel good, but we were thinking we were being hit with a generational storm, and it ended up being an every 5 or 6-year storm.  Those things happen.

The stock market is a very complex human experiment, but in a lot of ways it’s very simple.  I think the crazy roller coaster ride in the month of December (and more broadly all of 2018) really illustrates this.  Things are never as bad as they seem, and the best strategy is usually to just sit tight and let the craziness work its way out of the system.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year.  Next up you’ll see how the Fox family did on their investments including the wins and losses, so makes sure you have a box of tissues.