Passive Equity Portfolio: Annual Report

Let’s get to the ugly truth. Since inception (July 2014), my passive portfolio is up only 2.18%19 times less than the market return during the period. For 2017, the portfolio returned only 3.82%, 6 times less than the market return. Um….um….um, let me try to justify the low returns.

My peers and people jealous of me would be laughing like this:

Kuroda’s evil laugh
2014-2015

When I opened the account in the summer of 2014, TD Ameritrade gave me 2 months to trade for free. So during that time, I wanted to fill the account with stocks. The only problem was I did not know which stocks to buy. At the same time, I did not know how to research potential investments.

Mostly guided by “expert” recommendations and positive headlines, I bought some stocks which destroyed my portfolio, including Ford (F), J.C.Penny (JCP), Cisco (CSCO), General Electric (GE), and General Motors (GM). In 2015, I still did not know which stocks to buy. I wanted to do my own research. I decided to research all the stocks that were bought the previous year.

From my research, I found CSCO, GE, and JCP attractive. So I decided to keep them in the portfolio. I even wrote about CSCO and GE on the blog. I did not write on JCP as I was not profoundly convinced. Funny thing is I have never shopped at JCP, just at its competitors. Even my mother did not like J.C. Penny.

I did not like F, yet I decided to keep F in the port because it was not worth getting rid of them at $10 commissions. For GM, I was on the fence. In addition to these names, I decided to research new names and bought some of them. 70% of my portfolio was in cash in January of 2015. In December, it was 42%.

The new stocks I bought in 2015 were non-dividend yielding risky names, such as Bellatrix Exploration (BXE), Twitter (TWTR), and GoPro (GPRO). All of which did not work out well to this day. BXE, because I tried to find a good energy company at the time every energy companies were distressed. I’m very active on Twitter and use GoPro most of the time. So I wanted to invest in them. At that time, I thought Twitter would get acquired, and GoPro management would start to turn things around, and the Karma Drone would be positive for the company’s financials.

2016-2017

In 2016, I continued to research new stocks. However, I did not invest in any of them. I deposited more money into the account during that year. At the end of 2016, 82% of the portfolio was in cash.

I always found real estate interesting. Used to read about them. My interest in the real estate market skyrocketed after my first ever internship, at a small real estate firm. In January of 2017, I decided to buy WPC, a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). During the year, I also bought Verizon (VZ). I did not want the remaining cash in the port to sit idle. So I decided to purchase free commission based short-term bond funds, very stable dividend yielding cash parking (and one high-yield ETF). At the end of 2017, 17% of the port was in cash.

Over the past month, I have been researching consumer goods companies. I’m looking to add one to the port. When I do, I will be sure to write about it.

10 Equities

I’m currently holding 10 companies; CSCO, GE, GM, BXE, WPC, JCP, F, TWTR, GPRO, and VZ.

All shares of 10 different companies belong to 1 class: domestic equity. 62% are in large cap., and 38% are in mid-cap.

On February 16, 2015, I recommended going long Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) when the share price was $43.95. Since then, it is up 101%*. I made a mistake of not buying when I wrote about it. “Put your money where your mouth is, Khojinur.”

On April 12, 2015, I recommended going long General Electric (NYSE: GE). Since then, GE is down 33%*. Dividends are automatically invested in new shares. Average price I paid for the shares is $26. I’m down 29%. Despite the 50% dividend cut recently, I’m staying with the stock for two reasons. The cost-cutting will be the best bet for us the shareholders. The $7 commission fee won’t be worth it, especially since the stock was bought in 2015 when I had less money. If I can open second Robinhood account, I’ll transfer from Ameritrade to the free-commission based brokerage.

In the summer of 2015, I wrote about CSCO (part 1part 2 AND 4Q FY’15 earnings report). Since the first article, the networking giant is up 44%*. Average price I paid for the shares is $25.11. I’m currently up 57%.

On November 21, 2015, I wrote my first article on LLY and believed it was overvalued (it still is). Since then, the pharmaceutical company is up a mere 1.25%*. The second article on LLY was posted a year after the first article. I personally am not short the stock as I cannot short.

On December 26, 2015, I recommended going long GoPro (NASDAQ: GPRO) and believed it was a buy. Since then, the action camera maker and I are down whopping 59%.

On May 2, 2016, I recommended holding FireEye (NASDAQ: FEYE).  Since then, the cybersecurity firm is down 15%.

On January 20, 2017, I recommended going long W.P. Carey (NYSE: WPC). Since then, the REIT is up 11%*. Average price I paid for the shares is $61.44. I’m currently up 10%.

On May 9, 2017, I recommended going long Verizon (NYSE: VZ). Since then, the telecom is up 46%*. Average price I paid for the shares is $46.05. I’m currently up 47%.

*dividends not calculated

Estimated the portfolio dividend yield is 2.48% (that is very similar to the 10-year yield), with largest being 6% and lowest 0%. I plan to increase the portfolio dividend yield by getting rid of non-dividend yielding stocks and/or buying dividend-yielding stocks. That will happen fast, if I can make second Robinhood account and transfer the portfolio to there.

When I started doing research in-depth and writing down my findings and thoughts, everything started to improve. Writing is powerful!

Every new trade and investment will first be announced on Twitter. Almost always!

Q1 2017 Performance: Equity Investments

In the previous article, I talked about my performance for Forex portfolio in the first quarter of 2017. This article will lay out the equity investments portfolio performance for the 1st quarter. Unlike for forex, I don’t have much performance results for equity investment portfolio….at least for now.


Cash is trash.

For the first quarter of 2017, my stock investment portfolio was down 1.31%.

In the 1st quarter, I bought W.P. Carey (WPC). In this Seeking Alpha article, I laid out why I bought the diversified REIT.

Also during the quarter, I bought short-term bond ETFs. Such ETFs are Vanguard Short-Term Bond ETF (BSV), iShares 1-3 Year Credit Bond ETF (CSJ), Vanguard Short-Term Government Bond ETF (VGSH), and PowerShares Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt ETF (PCY).

I bought those ETFs for four reasons;

First, I had a lot of cash sitting in my portfolio. Cash did not add any value to my portfolio.

Second, the ETFs barely moves and yet offers attractive dividends that would be distributed every month, with low expense ratio. Instead of having cash be lazy, the ETFs provided free money since they barely moved in price.

And lastly, the ETFs were commission-free through my broker, Ameritrade. When opportunities arise, I can freely liquidate the ETFs position(s).

All three reasons provided me with great flexibility and free money. The average SEC 30 Day yield from the “big four” is currently 2.43%.

And lastly, I also bought iShares Core Conservative Allocation ETF (AOK). I bought this ETF for the same reasons I bought the “big four” ETFs; low risk, low fees, and attractive dividends.

The portfolio of the five ETFs mentioned above returned 2.77% in the past 5 years, with the largest quarterly loss at 2.65% in the 4th quarter of last year and the largest quarterly gain at 1.70% in the 1st quarter of last year. Year-to-date, it’s up 1.32%.

Estimated investment portfolio dividend yield is 2.8%, with largest being 6.4% and lowest 0%. I plan to increase the portfolio dividend yield by getting rid of non-dividend yielding stocks and/or buying dividend-yielding stocks.

I did not sell anything in the portfolio during the first quarter. However, I’m planning to make some changes this quarter, which will be released in the 2nd quarter performance article. But first, I will probably tweet out the changes.

32.30% of my portfolio is currently in cash. I plan to cut that in half. How will I do it? I’m not sure yet. I’m doing research on multiple companies. The one that stands out will be bought and an article about it will be posted, mostly likely on Seeking Alpha.

 

Note: Equity/Commodity active trading portfolio (Robinhood) performance will be posted later.

Update: “Q1 2017 Performance: Equity/Commodity Trading” article is posted.