Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

[FRED]

Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

The DJIA is off 4166 points (31%) since our Dec. 27, 2008 Debt Deflation Bear Market ($ubscription) call – our first since March 2000 – and 1656 points, more than 16%, since our Sept. 15 Fed Funds spread signals crash call, our second such call in ten years.

As a follower of iTulip, how is your portfolio holding up through the market carnage? Did you dodge the bullet?

[don]

Re: Post-crash iTuliper's portfolio condition poll

I'm about even and I thank iTulip for part of that

[jtabeb]

Re: Post-crash iTuliper's portfolio condition poll

I'm about even and I thank iTulip for part of that

I'm up about 5% net post crash. (depends on the reference date, I'm up 12.5% net since Dec 27 '07)

[Supercilious]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

My portfolio is above 20% since Dec 2007, but I'm not sure I'm qualified for the vote since I'm a fairly new member and I'm following a different investment thesis ...

[rlskaggs2003]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

Fortunately, up 25%.

[BrianL]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

I've seen your thesis posts but am not experienced enough to map it to a your positions. Can you talk a bit about that?

[Chief Tomahawk]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

Unfortunately I probably lead in the duckbill platapus race. Sold half my precious metal miners into yesterday's bounce. But they sure got boot-stomped in the past two weeks.

Coincidentally, my precious metal guru, Byron King, wrote again yesterday defending his "Six Screaming Buys". I'd post it here but I suspect mgmt. would not take kindly to reproduction of another's intellectual content, eventhough at this point Mr. King should probably be giving it away...

[ASH]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

As a follower of iTulip, how is your portfolio holding up through the market carnage? Did you dodge the bullet?

As a follower of iTulip generally, but not iTulip's calls specifically, I have done okay. My net worth is almost exactly the same today as it was in December of 2007. However, during that time, my household income was halved because my wife quit working at the beginning of the year to have our first child. Also, this includes paying cash (amounting to about 5.6% of my net worth) for a new car, and other baby-related expenses. So, basically, I've broken even, despite a 50% loss of non-investment income, and a not-insignificant expenditure.

Details follow, although I recently posted much of the same information on the How One iTuliper is Invested thread.

Actually, I took the post Before the Stroke of Midnight to be a crash warning, and that was actually on 7/25/2007 rather than the now-official market top call in December. At that time, I was already out of the domestic stock market (having exited the broader market in March 2006, and my remaining sector-specific funds in October/November 2006), but I sold out of my large international positions in early August 2007, just after the "Midnight" post. Based on information from iTulip and some corroborating sources, I figured the jig was up, because the first dominos had started to fall. I still had some international bond holdings, but in January of this year, I decided that Europe might have some currency problems because of divergent national interests within the EU, so I exited that position. I have been about 80% precious metals and 20% cash since (some of the cash is Swiss Francs).

Here is an update to the deltas since I exited specific positions (all the losses I didn't take).

Domestic Value
left VIVAX in 03/2006 at 23.52; now 17.28 (-26.5%)

Domestic Energy and Insurance
left FSPCX in 10/2006 at 72.15; now 29.78 (-58.7%)
left FSENX in 11/2006 at 47.92; now 34.26 (-28.5%)
left VGENX in 11/2006 at 62.86; now 50.17 (-20.2%)

International Stock
left FNORX 8/2007 at 42.65; now 23.06 (-45.9%)
left FICDX 8/2007 at 54.33; now 42.32 (-22.1%)
left VTRIX 8/2007 at 40.91; now 25.77 (-37.0%)
left VGTSX 8/2007 at 18.02; now 11.67 (-35.2%)

International Bonds
left BEGBX 1/2008 at 14.90; now 13.92 (-6.6%)

Oh yeah... I almost forgot. I also made quite a bit of money by buying long-dated puts against the DJIA in late September of 2007 when the DJIA was pushing 14,000 (strike price at 13,600 if you can believe it!), selling half that position in January, reinforcing with new puts (strike at 12,000) in late April, selling about half of the position at the end of June, and finally selling the rest in early September. (Should have let that hand play out a bit longer!)

[metalman]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

Unfortunately I probably lead in the duckbill platapus race. Sold half my precious metal miners into yesterday's bounce. But they sure got boot-stomped in the past two weeks.

Coincidentally, my precious metal guru, Byron King, wrote again yesterday defending his "Six Screaming Buys". I'd post it here but I suspect mgmt. would not take kindly to reproduction of another's intellectual content, eventhough at this point Mr. King should probably be giving it away...

meanwhile, over at paul douglas boyer's http://madmoneymachine.com/portfolios...
Professional Lazy Portfolios

ID	Professional Lazy Portfolio	Thru 30 Sep
L29	Harry Browne Permanent Portfolio	-2.2%
L04	Ben Stein Retirement	-7.3%
L13	Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio Vanguard	-8.9%
L12	Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio ETFs	-9.5%
L07	John Wasnik’s Nano Investment Portfolio	-9.5%
L15	Scott Burns’ Couch Potato Portfolio	-9.7%
L18	Scott Burns’ Five Fold Portfolio	-10.5%
L22	FundAdvice Ultimate Buy & Hold	-10.9%
L14	David Swensen’s Lazy Portfolio	-11.0%
L10	William Bernstein’s No Brainer Cowards Portfolio	-11.6%
L17	Scott Burns’ Four Square Portfolio	-12.0%
L19	Scott Burns’ Six Ways from Sunday Portfolio	-12.2%
L09	William Bernstein’s Basic No-Brainer Portfolio	-13.5%
L06	Frank Armstrong’s Ideal Index Portfolio	-13.6%
L03	Ben Stein 2007	-15.5%
L08	Andrew Tobias’ Lazy Portfolio	-16.3%
L16	Scott Burns’ Margarita (also Andrew Tobias) Portfolio	-16.3%
L11	Bill Schultheis’ Coffeehouse Portfolio Three ETF	-16.7%
L27	Bogle Tax-Sheltered	-17.6%
L28	MMM SMILER Funds	-17.6%
L24	MMM Do It Yourself ETFs	-18.9%
L20	Ted Aronson’s Lazy Portfolio	-19.1%
L01	IFA Index Portfolio 100 Bright Red	-19.4%
L23	MMM Do It Yourself Funds	-19.5%
L21	Merriman Vanguard Equity	-20.4%
L05	Jim Lowell’s Sower’s Growth Portfolio	-21.1%
L02	WisdomTree	-21.5%

Post-crash financial terminology definitions

"Diversified"

Pre-crash
5% cash
2% short term gov't debt
33% investment grade bonds
3% high yield
9% emerging market stocks
32% large cap us stocks
9% mid cap us stocks
7% small cap stocks

Post-crash
20% 13 wk t-bills
60% cash spread around as many banks as needed to stay under the latest FDIC limit
20% gold

[grapejelly]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

i'm down 50% on equities but up significantly on beans, tuna, peanut butter and corrugated boxes. Anyone seen a shopping cart that was there on the corner a minute ago?

[jimmygu3]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

i'm down 50% on equities but up significantly on beans, tuna, peanut butter and corrugated boxes. Anyone seen a shopping cart that was there on the corner a minute ago?

I have just gone long pumpkins, which I plan to hold through early '09.

Seriously, I'm down 7% for the year. Commodities, miners & Alt Energy have taken a beating. Fortunately my inverse funds have hedged a good bit of the losses- otherwise I'd be down much more.

Jimmy

[LargoWinch]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

In January of 2008, my portfolio was composed of the following:

5% global equities: sold most of it in Oct. and Nov. of 07 (lucky me)
10% short-term Gov. of Canada Bonds
18% Platinum
31% Gold
36% Cash

I did well in Gold (in my local currency the $CAD), but I got hit hard in my platinum position which is down 35%. I later purchased Natural Gas (7% of my portfolio) with 2x leverage back in the spring and lost 60%+ on that in less than 6 weeks. Not a good feeling.

In the end, despite me saving 50% of my paycheck, my portfolio is only slightly higher than as of Jan. of 08. In other words: I am up but without me saving so much, my portfolio would be down about 10% overall.

Currently, I have the following positions:

50% Cash (@ 3.4% and 4.0% - non-taxed)
37% Gold
6% Platinum
5% Silver
1% Natural Gas (2x leverage - 2% effective)
1% Palladium

Bottom line: Should have sold most of my Platinum position (I was up more than 40% on that investment at some point) and should have stayed away from 2x leveraged Natural Gas... ah those ETFs!

PS: Is it possible to copy and past a MS Excel graph on iTulip?

PPS: I convinced both my parents to reallocate their entire portfolio (retirement funds) 95% in cash in late 2007 and with a 5% gold physical position (I suggested more gold but they refused). Before that their genius investment advisor told them that 70% in equities (Canadian index fund) and 30% gov. bonds should be more like it. Their cash is up 3% and their gold is up in $CAD about 14% for an overall return of about +4%. Better than me! Should I expect a nice Xmas gift?

[jpatter666]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

My 401Ks have taken a beating (down about 20%) but they are very long-term to go and I did buy some gold/PM funds.

Personal accounts are down maybe 5% mainly thanks to this site which has kept me paranoid enough not to jump in on some of the falls knowing that it was likely even bigger falls were in the future (and that came about even more than my worst assumptions).

Mainly in cash, a little PMs. I'm still suspicious that the CBs have one last big push in them to force down and wipe out any gold speculators. I'm looking for that.

[LargoWinch]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

60% cash spread around as many banks as needed to stay under the latest FDIC limit

hmmm seems that some have more chickens to lose than me.

why not posting your allocation under Jim's investement allocation thread?

btw, very a propos clip.

[Basil]

Re: Post-crash iTulipers' portfolio condition poll

I am somewhat screwed. As for what I manage myself, I am about even. I interviewed many account managers in March and moved the bulk of my funds to an outfit that spoke as if they understood the Itulip thesis, but then invested as if they were gambling on a single sector, shipping. I asked for active management and aggressive strategies to defend against market downturns. I specifically said I wanted a manager who was willing to go all cash, but when things turned they stood there a a deer in the headlights. I got out and am now all cash after taking a good 35% whack on what I had with them.

As always, the biggest mistake was entrusting my affairs to someone else. If anyone has any advice as to how to proceed with arbitration let me know. Considering that they did not manage my accounts in the manner we had agreed, this is a case of fraud.

EJ, do you know any good lawyers for such things? I am in the Boston area.