My Financial Journey

In annual tradition I will list all of my current investments. These really do not change significantly from year to year as I don’t do a lot of buying and selling and well now as my portfolio has grown so big the amount of money I am putting in towards new investments tends to be sort of insignificant.

Not really too much to add over last years analysis as my portfolio is essentially the same with only 2-3 minor purchases this year.

In annual tradition I will list all of my current investments. These really do not change significantly from year to year as I don’t do a lot of buying and selling and well now as my portfolio has grown so big the amount of money I am putting in towards new investments tends to be sort of insignificant.

That being said there was some movement around this year. The mutual funds are part of my 401k and are a very similar percentage of my overall retirement nestegg. I max out my 401k each year and kind of just set it and forget about it. My 401k makes up about 45% of my nestegg.

My individual stock holdings comprise of about 30-40 stocks with the new addition this year being that I am now including some private stock I had previously not included that is actually my largest individual stock holding. My top 5 public stock holdings this year are Netflix, Tesla Motors, Amazon, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Under Armour which are the same five from last year with a few of them flipping spots.

I feel super good about that top 5. My Tesla stake has increased due to the large investment I had in Solar City which the acquired as well as most of my investment money this year going to Tesla. I feel very strongly that their future will be very bright and have a big enough and diversified portfolio that I can probably take a larger risk there without it really affecting my overall portfolio too negatively.

When I started this blog in 2005 I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing it. I knew it was for me to learn about myself, but I think one of the big things I remember thinking at the time was it would be a vehicle for me to be able to look back in time and see how the day to day, month to month, and year to year gyrations of the stock market mean nothing in the grand scheme of things and how the people who promote the gyrations and the people who listen to and react to those short term gyrations are foolish.

Well 10+ years of blogging and tracking my accounts have left me with a picture that I think the 26 year old MFJ thought he would see down the road.

It kind of blows my mind looking at that chart – especially the trajectory. That whole compounding thing is pretty powerful. The other thing that kind of blows my mind is that you have to almost squint to see the “Great Recession” where the economy and stock market imploded and if you listened to any of the news media the world was going to come to an end. Even some of the best Personal Finance bloggers out there at the time were losing their minds.

But just look at that picture – if you did anything other than plow your money into the market your entire lifetime you were throwing away boatloads of money.

Now granted I have slightly outperformed the market over the years, but here is a stat for you that I’m sure most people would argue can’t be true.

The SP500 during this tumultuous decade of lost wealth, stagnating economy, and just general doom has been up 12 of the last 13 years.

That’s right since 2003 the SP500 has only been down 1 time. That’s 92%!! The last decade plus has been an absolutely incredible time to invest in the stock market, but again I bet 92% of people you asked would have told you the stock market has lost money almost every year.

Even the last 13 years aren’t even that remarkable. Since I have been alive the SP500 has only been down 6 times. So 30 out of 36 years I’ve been alive – the SP500 has had positive returns.

The odds are definitely in your favor so if you haven’t already – get started, start investing, and create your own amazing chart of wealth awesomeness. All it takes is saving money, investing money, and time – then wait for the amazing things to happen.

Here are my top stock performers for 2015

Netflix +135.45%
Amazon +118.67%
Starbucks +46.70%
Arista Networks +19.30%
IPG Photonics +18.39%
Under Armour +18.39%
Costco +12.58%
Panera +12.42%

Obviously Netflix and Amazon knocked it out of the park this year. It goes to show you that the same stocks can carry your portfolio over time. Netflix and Amazon are some of my biggest winners historically and yet here they are leading the charge again this year. Though Netflix and Amazon were top losers for me last year and I wrote this in last years report about Amazon – looks like Jeff was listening

Amazon – Jeff Bezos will take over the world – end of story. The stock market only concerns themselves with short-term results which he cares nothing about. Keep going Jeff!

Under Armour is a repeat top performer from last year and I think the future is extremely bright for all of the stocks on this list and I expect to see them on future top stock lists.

And now for the losers…

3D Systems -73.63%
Stratasys -72.11%
InvenSense -37.15%
Sam Adams -31.73%
Whole Foods Market -30.78%
Chipotle -29.23%
Bidu -19.51%

Ouch 3D printers 🙂 Two years in a row of just getting pummeled for anything 3D printer related. They were wall street darlings a few years ago and now wall street hates them – we’ll see long term if the industry and these companies are viable businesses.

Sam Adams, Whole Foods, and Chipotle – not a great year for food stocks and lots of questions around competition in these areas. These are all top notch companies run by visionaries in their field and my money is on them winning in the long term just like they have historically. They may go through some growing pains, but long term they have better talent and better strategies.

Bidu – Anything Chinese will be volatile as is their entire economy. Bidu is a tech titan and should be a major player in a major market.

Continuing on my tradition from last year I have calculated my cumulative investment returns from 2006 until now against the SP500. I actually had to make some corrections to my calculation as I had missed the SP500 dividends in the annual return for some years so my outperformance was not quite as big as I had previously stated.

Overall my nestegg returns are still besting the SP500 though not quite as handedly as before. One item of note is my individual stock investments have crushed the SP500 over the years but my overall nestegg has just barely edged it out. This basically means I’ve underperformed the index with my 401k investments – which is kind of disappointing.

75% of my 401k today is in index/lifestyle funds, but in the past I’ve probably tried to be too smart and like most people cost myself returns versus just doing the smart/easy thing and sticking it all in an index fund. This is something for me to keep on an eye on.

On the other hand my stock performance has been so good it probably makes sense for me to just quit my job so I can cash out the quarter million dollars I have tied up in my 401k.

Continuing on my tradition from last year I have calculated my cumulative investment returns from 2006 until now against the SP500. The good news is that I am still pretty handily beating the SP500, especially when it comes to my individual stock investments, but the bad news is that I trailed the market by a few percentage points this year. Given my massive outperformance last year I can’t be too upset about trailing by a few points.

During the 9 years I have been tracking my investments closely enough to calculate returns the SP500 has produced annualized returns of 6.47%. During the same period of time all of the investments in my Retirement Nestegg have produced 7.36% annualized returns which is nice to be beating the market. But where I am really proud of is that my individual stock picks which now make up more than half of my portfolio have returned annualized returns of 12.17% which is nearly double what the SP500 has returned. If I am able to keep this up financial independence is not too far around the corner

Here are my top stock performers for 2014.

BJ’s Restaurant (BJRI) 61.92%
Ambarella (AMBA) 59.05%
Under Armour (UA) 57.93%
Tesla Motors (TSLA) 47.17%
Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) 39.20%
Apple Inc (AAPL) 37.96%
Bidu Inc (BIDU) 31.19%
Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) 28.96%

Looking at the list I will point out that BJRI had made my list the last two years as a loser and it’s nice to see my patience and long term timeframe pay off with it being my biggest winner this year. Ambrella is a newer stock for me having first purchased last October and is riding the wave of video.

Under Armour is a favorite of mine and long term they will likely surpass Nike. Telsa and Elon Musk are going to change the world as we know it much faster than expected. Intuitive Surgical and robots will continue to revolutionize the way we do surgery. Apple is a behemoth and is totally ingrained in the way we interact with technology. China is coming online with crazy numbers of users and Bidu is a major player there. Finally Chipotle is completely changing the way we eat fast food and in my opinion are just getting started. They will someday surpass McDonalds in size.

And now for the losers.

3D Systems (DDD) -63.79%
Stratasys (SSYS) -35.57%
Ubiquiti Networks (UBNT) -34.00%
Amazon (AMZN) -22.03%
InvenSense (INVN) – 9.86%
Netflix (NFLX) -7.04%
Solar City (SCTY) – 6.05%

After 2 straight years of being in my top 3, 3D Systems had a rough year. Still 3D printing is in its infancy and 3D Systems and Stratasys will take advantage of this fast growing industry over the long term.

Ubiquity Networks is a small networking company who is making commercial grade equipment and selling it at consumer level prices. It’s users rave about its products and their CEO is pretty smart. Again a long-term winnner.

Amazon – Jeff Bezos will take over the world – end of story. The stock market only concerns themselves with short-term results which he cares nothing about. Keep going Jeff!

The last three aren’t down much but I will mention that despite its massive runup – Netflix has a long ways to go. So while my initial purchase is up nearly 18 times – I expect that long term that initial investment could end up being a 50 bagger.

Solar City like Tesla is going to take advantage of a huge trend of cheap electricity and improved batteries. The world is changing as we speak and these two companies are leading the charge. Just like BlockBuster never saw Netflix coming until they were bankrupt I have a feeling many car companies and utility companies will be the Blockbusters in the next 5-10 years.

While this arbitrary annual exercise really can’t tell you much about my stocks, I like the exercise as I honestly am surprised sometimes by the companies that make the two lists and it gives me a chance to revisit my investment thesis for these companies and hopefully as I look back on past years evaluations I will have learned something about my biases. Obviously right now I am a Elon Musk fan boi, but I honestly feel very strongly about what he is doing and plan to put the bulk of my investment money this year into his companies.