I can't believe that it has been nearly two years since F Wall Street was originally launched on June 25, 2007. And what a two years it has been!
Since our launch, we saw the S&P 500 climb to an all-time high in October of 2007, only to watch it plummet nearly 58% to a level first seen in May of 1996. Some of the causes of the drop were highly predictable. Some of the events, such as the September 2008 disaster, were completely unpredictable. And through it all, we were largely, if not entirely, invested in individual stocks.
Let's see how we did.
Portfolio Performance
If you recall, I started the F Wall Street portfolio with $100,000, and compare it to the Diamond Trust Series (DIA) — an ETF that tracks the Dow — and the Vanguard S&P 500 index fund (VFINX). I compare to these two funds because investors can't invest directly in an index; so, these are two of the broad "index-type" investments.
In the roughly two years since F Wall Street was launched, $100,000 in the F Wall Street portfolio grew to $103,224 (+3.2%) while $100,000 invested in the DIA and VFINX fell to $68,246 (-31.8%) and $63,225 (-36.8%), respectively. On an annualized basis, we have outperformed the better of the two investments (the DIA) by 19.6% per year.
What's In Our Portfolio?
The portfolio snapshot below is as of yesterday's close. This morning, I sold DBB because it didn't work out as planned. I will discuss it in a later post.
Thoughts on Our Portfolio and Performance
Had I been able to spend more time and energy on the blog, I am certain that our results would have been much better. As the markets plummeted, I found myself with less and less time to post, as is indicated by my lack of activity here over the past year. I first mentioned this problem in March of 2008 in this post:
When the markets were flying high, I had all the time in the world to write posts for an hour or two a day. Trying to maintain that pace in this market would be detrimental to our future returns.
It is important to remember that I am not a professional blogger, living off advertising revenue and blogging for dollars. Nor am I a professional author, living off book royalties. (Trust me — there's no money in writing books unless you're Steven King.)
Some opportunities that were missed in the F Wall Street portfolio:
- Graham Corporation, which was discussed ex post facto and never included in our results.
- The InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch workout which, at one point, offered a substantial premium.
- As I mentioned in this interview on First Business and back in November to my friend Barry Pasikov, Managing Partner at Hazelton Capital Partners, Sears Holding Company was an amazing opportunity in November, when it was trading at just $30 and less.
- And, of course, Wells Fargo which, in February, fell to just $7.80 a share.
