Has 2017 Been good for you?

TBC15

economic wrote: »

you must be pretty young to have that much in equities. Well done though.

58 and been investing for about 28yrs, quite happy to stick with the program.

economic

TBC15 wrote: »

58 and been investing for about 28yrs, quite happy to stick with the program.

Good strategy. i'm 34 investing since 2012.

bostonerimus

economic wrote: »

then your return in £ terms is not 18% but only 8%. not taking anything away from you, 8% is still good. Its just that it needs to be made clearer on a thread such as this so we are comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. currency matters a lot!!

The key things are currency and what the % is based on. If i bought BTC in Jan this year for £100 and the rest of my hundreds of thousands were in cash then i could say i made 1000% or whatever which would be impressive buts its only on £100.

Yes currency matters, but as I'm invested in dollars and spend dollars my account for my purposes is up 18% Comparing apples with apples requires that you don't do currency conversions when they are not appropriate.If I owned VTSAX, VTIAX and VBTLX in the UK and had used pounds to buy those $ denominate funds then I would agree with your logic, but I'm in the US and used $ to buy $ denominated funds. If I was in the UK I would probably own something like 70% Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF and 30% VLS20 giving a roughly 18.5% 2017 YTD return ......in GBPs

AlanP_2

SIPP is up 11.1%
AVC is up 14.6%

SIPP has been moving slowly to a more defensive rather than growth allocation over the year so very happy with those numbers.

Overall Net Worth (excluding house but including mortgage) is up by 136% which I am very pleased with.

Even taking pensions out of the equation Assets will end the year greater than Liabilities, which again is very pleasing as all "savings" over the year went into Pensions.

Here's to a similarly successful 2018 for us all.

TBC15

economic wrote: »

Good strategy. i'm 34 investing since 2012.

Unfortunately for you there will be testing times ahead, once again stick with the program.

economic

bostonerimus wrote: »

Yes currency matters, but as I'm invested in dollars and spend dollars my account for my purposes is up 18% Comparing apples with apples requires that you don't do currency conversions when they are not appropriate.If I owned VTSAX, VTIAX and VBTLX in the UK and had used pounds to buy those $ denominate funds then I would agree with your logic, but I'm in the US and used $ to buy $ denominated funds. If I was in the UK I would probably own something like 70% Vanguard FTSE All-World ETF and 30% VLS20 giving a roughly 18.5% 2017 YTD return ......in GBPs

In hindsight you would have been better off by 10% return absolute if you had hedged your $ into £. you can then sell the "£" investments to convert back to dollars to spend. You would be better off clearly - more purchasing power.

Currency is not only important in comparing returns, but also absolute investment performance. Now you could say that by you investing in $ investments you removed all currency risk, thats true and i would agree with you on that. But this does not mean it does not matter for investment returns. it matters a lot.

economic

TBC15 wrote: »

Unfortunately for you there will be testing times ahead, once again stick with the program.

I also have a lot more time to make mistakes and see through the mistakes. time is on my side.

bostonerimus

economic wrote: »

In hindsight you would have been better off by 10% return absolute if you had hedged your $ into £. you can then sell the "£" investments to convert back to dollars to spend. You would be better off clearly - more purchasing power.

Currency is not only important in comparing returns, but also absolute investment performance. Now you could say that by you investing in $ investments you removed all currency risk, thats true and i would agree with you on that. But this does not mean it does not matter for investment returns. it matters a lot.

I don't speculate on exchange rates and don't use the conditional in connection with past investments. If I had foresight instead of hindsight then there are lots of things I'd do. If I was contemplating a return to the UK then I would do some currency hedging, but the dollar to pound exchange rate only bothers me when I'm buying some stilton or Neal's Yard Montgomery cheddar at my local supermarket.

TBC15

economic wrote: »

I also have a lot more time to make mistakes and see through the mistakes. time is on my side.

Lucky chap. Just remember stick with the program.

economic

bostonerimus wrote: »

I don't speculate on exchange rates and don't use the conditional in connection with past investments. If I had foresight instead of hindsight then there are lots of things I'd do. If I was contemplating a return to the UK then I would do some currency hedging, but the dollar to pound exchange rate only bothers me when I'm buying some stilton or Neal's Yard Montgomery cheddar at my local supermarket.

i agree with what you are saying, but all i am saying is that if you are measuring your investment performance (and you clearly are as you posted on here providing your return), currency matters as lot as we have seen this year. if you had put all you rmoney into vanguard LS 100%, you would be up a bit more then you have, would you say what you invested in (what appears to be all $ denominated assets) was less riskier then a globally diversified fund?