I have now officially been running this blog for a full year now. I’ve had my ups and my downs, but I think I’ve grown considerably as an investor. I truly think I am better than when I started and I am now even more committed to GARP investing. Putting my thoughts out in public has forced me to focus on my core beliefs and has held me accountable. I expect my growth in year 2 to be even greater than in year 1. Just like wealth, knowledge is always compounding.

Year One performance

I started this journey exactly one year ago. I put $10,000.00 of my own money into my 10K Portfolio. I put that money into companies I believed in and let them do the work for me. Thankfully, I didn’t fall flat on my face and I’ve been able to make some money. My portfolio now stands at $10,843.11. As I often state, making a positive return isn’t all that difficult. You can buy government bonds and make a virtually risk free return, it just won’t be very good. I choose to compare my portfolio to the S&P 500. If you can’t outperform the general American index in the long run, you don’t have much business in picking individual stocks. When I started on 8/19/18, the SPY stood at $285.06. As of 8/19/19 the SPY closed at $292.33.

Return(1)          SPY Return(2)         Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $10,843.11:             8.43                      2.55                         5.88

Simply looking at the SPY ticker isn’t quite fair to the index. My portfolio value accounts for all dividends I have collected over the last year. The SPY does not automatically reinvest dividends. They currently give out a yield of 1.86%. Without knowing the exact days of distribution and all that jazz, I think it is easiest if I just add in 1.86% to the SPY return in order to give a more accurate picture. Therefore a more realistic result would be as follows:

Return(1)          SPY Return(2)         Difference(1-2)

Portfolio value $10,843.11:             8.43                      4.41                         4.02

Overall, I am pretty satisfied with my results in year one. I outperformed the SPY by a hair over 4%. Take this with a grain of salt, one year is not nearly enough time to get an accurate picture. It will likely take at least 3 years to really tell whether this out performance is for real. That being said, I certainly prefer to have this head start.

Mistakes Made

I have learned a number of lessons since starting this blog. Some were completely new to me, while other things I knew but needed to be reinforced. My first punch to the gut came shortly after beginning. I rushed into some companies, rather than waiting for an appropriate entry price. Soon after I bought into my first companies, the market took a precipitous fall. Had I just bought in a couple of months later, my returns would likely be higher by a good 10%. The biggest lesson I learned was not to fight against a large macroeconomic situation. I grossly underestimated both how much effect the trade war could impact my companies and how long such a situation could last. I thought we were looking at a blip on the radar and my companies would return to form in just a couple of months. I was wrong. This trade war has lasted far longer than I had anticipated and has greatly lowered the earning power of some of my companies. I don’t think the end is in sight and for that reason I have chosen to make some changes to my portfolio. I still believe in these companies, in the long run I would bet that all will end up fine. However, I must stick to my principles as a GARP investor and therefore I choose to invest in the path of growth, not turnaround situations.

Portfolio Changes

Within the last month, I have cut out my positions in HII, IPGP, and LEA. As I stated, all are fine companies. They simply haven’t been able to whether this trade war without suffering. Each has seen their earning power eroded greatly and the stocks have followed suit. Unfortunately, I lost money on all three of these investments. Thankfully, some of my winners have more than made up for it. In fact, my investment into FND alone has made up all losses in these three companies. With the money from selling, I bought one additional share of FB for $180.17. I now sit on a cash balance of $1,688.44. I have a number of companies on my watch list that I am following and I will be waiting for a good time to enter into two or three new positions. I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens.

As always, thank you for reading. I have appreciated your support over the last year and look forward to seeing where this journey takes me. Be sure to subscribe and follow me on Twitter @Thegarpinvestor. Feel free to share the post, thanks!