Kat,
Just to be clear about your goal, if the average return for the S & P is 12%? your goal is 24% annually?
Whatever the S&P return happens to be, the goal is to double it. (By the way, the goal is to beat it including the S&P's dividends, but I rarely track that. Kind of an oversight for a nitpicker, huh. )
If I recall right there is a lot of evidence showing that the vast majority of investors don't even reach 15%.
Most investors buying individual stocks never read an SEC filing, never take the time to understand financial statements, never learn the competitive disadvantages and the advantages of the companies they invest in, and in summary spend less time researching the stocks they put their life savings in than the time they put into researching the purchase of a refrigerator or a car.
For the huge number of investors that invest in mutual funds, it's not surprising that they don't achieve 15% returns. Generally 80% to 90% of mutual funds underperform the S&P 500.
Are you talking about just the G&K portion of your portfolio or your entire portfolio?
My entire portfolio. Presently, my entire portfolio happens to be a G&K portfolio but that has been the case only since 2000. (Bad timing, huh.)
Regardless of the investment style I choose at any particular time (I'm always open-minded to change), my goal is to double the S&P 500 over long periods of time. Though I achieved the goal during the ten-year period of 1990 through 1999 and the five-year period of 1995 through 1999, my performance during the last two years has been substantially less than satisfactory.
Either way I'm going to pay even more attention to what you say this next year.
Good! Start by paying attention to the following which has been posted in each of my Front Office Gorilla Game write-ups for about 3 1/2 years: "Most important, please, please don't make any investment decisions based on anything coming from my keyboard." :)
--Mike Buckley |
