(10/31/2013)
We are up 61% vs S&P's 25%. AAPL finally stayed over 500.
(8/31/2013)
As of end of August, we're up 35% vs S&P's 15%.
(12/31/2013)
We have a fantastic year. With a focus on equities and technology, we have a gang-buster performance: up 75% versus S&P's 32% (dividend plus appreciation).
(5/5/2013)
We're up 22% vs S&P's 14%.
(4/30/2013)
April was tough. AAPL dropped all the way down to $385. Institutions have been abandoning the stock and the business. We kept buying. By month end, when the company announced the debt-financing plan the stock was back up to $440 range. We're now up 17% YTD.
(3/22/2013)
AAPL has become our top holding. Its backing up to $461 has helped. We're now up by 14% ytd, beating S&P by 4 points. April is approaching, we're trimming home builders but this sector remains our most active one.
(1/1/2013)
It has been an interesting year. We were up strongly in the first quarter, but also went through a lot of ups and downs. The Euro crisis continued to fester during the summer. The "fiscal cliff" drama caused a big and artificial damage in the year end. But we did OK, finishing 2012 with a 16.1% gain, beating major indices.
(3/19/2012)
It has been an amazingly calm 1Q. Very shallow pullbacks. Buy-in-dips continues to be a winning strategy. We're up about 18% YTD, roughly matching the sizzling NASDAQ index.
(1/11/2012)
2011 was a volatile and tough year. We didn't do much and were flatish. 2012 could be a lot more profitable.
(1/1/2011)
Happy New Year! We finished 2010 with a big December, up by 11% or so, bringing our 2010 return to 25.5%. Not a bad year. We could have done better. Over the last three years, we have returned 62%, with an annualized 17.5%. That should outperformed 99% of domestic equity funds one can invest on Schwab or Fidelity platforms.
(12/24/2010)
We're now back up to 24.2% YTD. Should end the year hitting our goal of 20%. Looking back, in April we were already up by 28%+ and became cautious at that point. We were raising cash and increasing shorts. It was the right thing to do. That helped, but we didn't go aggressive enough before the European debt crisis and the oil spill hit hard. Not just that, the US fiscal stimulus ran out of steam, and job creation came to a grinding halt in May and June... not until the Fed telegraphed its QE2 message in late August that the stock market started to roll back up. And the rally continued with a large leaps in Sept and December. We have become very defensive at this point. Sold off most of our builder stocks, shorted some. We're 50% in cash, getting ready for a January or February sellloff.
Over the last three years, We're up cumulatively 60%. S&P is still down in the negative territory. Few mutual funds have a three-year annual returns over 10%. We're happy with our result, and will work hard for a better 2011.
(12/16/2010)
Steady gain since August has helped IQR regain its footing. We hope to finish the year at around 20% gain.
(6/11/2010)
YTD, S&P -1.2%, best Vanguard VGSIX 12.8%, worst Vanguard VEURX -14.8%. IQR_LS +5.7%. The last two weeks saw massive selloff of equities. We're long recovery, so we got hit along with most stock funds. REITs are more like fixed income, it's one of the best performing equity classes.
(5/28/2010)
YTD, S&P -1.5%, best Vanguard now the good old REITs fund at 11.4%. The worst Vanguard is VEURX -16.0%. IQR_LS 12.4%. European problems dominated the news and the markets. We stayed in the course.
(5/22/2010)
YTD S&P has gone negative again at -1.7%, best Vanguard, surprise, is long treasury fund, VUSTX at 9.6%, surpassing VGSIX's 9.1%. Worst Vanguard still VEURX at -16%! We haven't done well last week, losing quite a bit of money. IQR_LS returns 12.2% YTD.
Suddenly, the economic recovery is very clouded with Euro crisis, China slowdown, slow slow job creation. The New Normal thesis is back.
(5/14/2010)
YTD, S&P 2.6%, best Vanguard VGSIX +14.8%, worst Vanguard VEURX -13.7%. IQR_LS +19.8%. Volatile.
(5/7/2010)
Fear of the Greek Contagion told hold of the market. Mini crash last Thursday and Friday. Major large-cap indices wiped out the gains of the year.
YTD, S&P 0.3%, best Vanguard VGSIX +10.6%, worst Vanguard VEURX -15.7%. IQR_LS now up only 14.1%. We continued to buy this dip, setting us up for a rebound once the European sovereign debt problem finds a credible solution: The ECB and the governments have to put their acts together, following the U.S. example after Lehman.
(4/30/2010)
A volatile week, with Goldman problem, Greece problem, financial reform and the oil spill. Our earlier was right, but the pullback was difficult to gauge and hedge. Getting out of banks other than WFC was very helpful, but we got hit by the energy sector problem, which hopefully will subside next week. If it does we should outperform again.
YTD, S&P is now up 7.1%, best Vanguard is REITs fund VGSIX +17.8%, and the worst Vanguard fund continues to be the European fund VEURX -4.2%. Our fund IQR_LS is back down to 25.2%.
(4/23/2010)
YTD, S&P is up 9.8%, best Vanguard still the small value VISVX +21.2%, worst Vanguard VEURX -0.3%, IQR_LS fund is +28.2%. At this level, we're concerned with a potential pullback. So we continue to raise cash and add short positions. We've also rotated into material sector that has been lagging, but if the economy picks up more they should catch up.
(4/16/2010)
YTD, S&P +7.5%, best Vanguard VISVX +16.1%, IQR LS fund +23.3%. First week of earnings season looked to be a great start, only to fizzle with the Goldman bomb. We traded quite a bit.
(4/9/2010)
YTD, S&P +7.7%, best Vanguard VGSIX +15.0%, IQR LS fund +20.8%. We've trimmed banks and raised a lot of cash, getting ready for the earnings season. Our bias remains long on stocks that will benefit from the global recovery.
(4/2/2010)
YTD, S&P +6.1%, best Vanguard VISVX +11.2%, IQR Long Short US Equity + 16.3%.
Both energy and precious metal funds have improved in recent days.
(3/26/2010)
YTD, S&P +5.1%, best Vanguard VGSIX +11.24%, worst Vanguard VGENX -3.22%, IQR_LS + 16.8%.
Despite the talk of commercial real estate problems, REITs have been one of the best-performing categories. Energy has been down, which is kind of a surprise. That goes against the prevalent advice of investing in emerging markets.
(3/19/2010)
YTD, S&P +5%, best Vanguard is now the REIT fund VGSIX +9.84% while the small value VISVX is not far behind at +9.42%, IQR_LS +11.3%.
We took a big hit this week from energy correction and home builder correction. Trimmed financials to raise cash as Dow is hanging high. Political uncertainty is high.
(3/13/2010)
A good week. YTD, S&P +3.6%, best Vanguard VISGX +8.97% while VISVX +8.96%, IQR_LS +15.5%.
Small caps maintained its edge. We maintained ours. Interesting to note that outlook for fertilizer stocks have improved a lot.
(3/5/2010)
Big week. YTD, S&P +2.5%, best Vanguard VISVX +7.2%, IQR_LS +13.5%.
Helped by our large positions in home builders and banks. Note that small caps are outperforming large caps in recent months, indicative of a normal "V" recovery.
(3/2/2010) Small cap funds now leading performance in Vanguard family, with Small Cap Value VISVX at 4.67%. This seems to support the classic recovery story of small companies being leaders in economic recovery... As expected, stock funds are now moving into the leading fund area. It'll be very hard for us to keep beating the best of Vanguard funds. They simply have too many funds run by so many in-house professionals and/or advisors. It's still very inetresting.
(2/26/2010) Not a good week. Our US Equity L/S strategy YTD return is down to +6.6%, while S&P is -0.6%, and best Vanguard +2.7% (VFICX). Bond funds are still having upper hand. That should change.
Past Performance:
+76% 2009
