Well -- first off a comparison has to be apples to apples -- the first half of this year brought most of the gains - the last half has just been "okay" --- so to really compare - you'd have to ONLY compare the stocks that you've owned for the same period of time ----- OR ---- see if the new buys compare IF you'd bought them at the same time as what you're comparing. The fact that you bought them later could be the difference.
Then - you have to see what the comps are against. So let's just say the mutual fund with the big (very nice btw!) gain -- might be mostly "tech" -- or some other sector fund that has done extremely well. Or is it just a general blended "big cap" or "small cap" fund etc. Typically a "sector fund" can outdo a more broad based portfolio IF -- always the big if -- it happens to be in the hot sector for that year. We can't see what you're in - and it's none of our business... so I can't look for you. Just give you some food for thought when you're making head to head comparisons.
I like to look at ALL of my money to really get a feel for how I'm doing overall... so how am I doing in the apartment business - how am I doing in the commercial real estate - how am I doing in stocks etc. Typically I could always find "something" that is weaker than the other THIS TIME --- next time -- that laggard is suddenly pulling the whole wagon. That's why anyone and everyone will stress "diversity" in your investments. RARELY will everything be pumping on all 8 at the same time. We'd like it to be that way - but it's rarely that way.
Now - the other thing - we don't know - is did you reinvest your dividends and are you calculating that correctly. The FUNDS all figure reinvested dividends to get their return or growth calculations.
Another thing I'd ask you to do - is to look at what makes up your funds top 10 holdings -- and see if they just happened to get one or two big hitters out of the whole mix. Let's say they held a big percentage (5% or so) of NetFlix which has been up like 305% year to date.... Dude that will kick ANYONES ass!
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Originally Posted by WSSix
So I sat down and figured up my percentages for everything I own. My totals for all stocks since I've owned them is
Div Gains 4.76% Capital Gains 8.5% Total Gains 13.67%
Some of the stocks I have only owned a few months. Others, I have owned for 18 months. Should I be looking at all these as a lumped group or should I take into account the fact that a few stocks are only a few months old? Since I went for percentages, I think I have it calculated correctly. After all, we're looking at how much money my money has made. I'm trying to compare it to what my money that's being managed by Fidelity and Vanguard in two different mutual funds is doing. My Fidelity account has a year to date return of 16% where as my Vanguard account is up 25% from March 2012 which is when I bought my first stocks. It looks like I'm getting my butt kicked but I wanted to make sure I did my calculations correctly and my comparison too.
BTW -- if you'd just have put every dime into the QQQ -- which is the Nasdaq ETF -- you'd be up YTD 32.81% -- which makes your 25% look pee poor! LOL
The SPY -- which is a ETF of the S&P 500 -- is up 27.49%
There are professional fund managers who's income is based on them "beating" some index or another - they have crews of college edumakated calculators - and most don't make it and they're paid MILLIONS... so I think your almost 14% is doing pretty dang good. At that rate - you'll double your money in about 5 years!
Thanks
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