As many of you may know over the past three years I had the good fortune to work on our real-money portfolio service Million Dollar Portfolio. Unfortunately the time has come to close the service and move on to hopefully bigger and better things. Our time on Million Dollar Portfolio was pretty great. We had an awesome team that enjoyed working together and Matty Argersinger did a hell of a job as our PM. Under our three-year watch not only did we make our members a lot of money but we outperformed the market handily; something we’re all really proud of.
We also ran a monthly feature in the service called Best Buys Now (BBNs). This gave each of us on the team the opportunity to shine a light on one or two ideas each that we felt were the most timely stock recommendations for our members. I’m happy to see that as of market-close on May 18, 2018, since inception (May 18, 2015) my portfolio of BBN recommendations has returned a total of 20.7%, outpacing the benchmark’s return of 20.6% by a tenth of a percentage point. Not much of a delta of course, but hey winning is winning at the end of the day. Below is a snapshot of the portfolio as of market close on May 18, 2018:
We also ran a monthly feature in the service called Best Buys Now (BBNs). This gave each of us on the team the opportunity to shine a light on one or two ideas each that we felt were the most timely stock recommendations for our members. I’m happy to see that as of market-close on May 18, 2018, since inception (May 18, 2015) my portfolio of BBN recommendations has returned a total of 20.7%, outpacing the benchmark’s return of 20.6% by a tenth of a percentage point. Not much of a delta of course, but hey winning is winning at the end of the day. Below is a snapshot of the portfolio as of market close on May 18, 2018:
The closing price for the SPY in 2015 was $213.10 and in 2018 it was $271.33. By this math, from point A to point B the market is up 27.3% so it’s worth noting a few things:
I'll continue to keep track of this portfolio going forward as I believe there will be plenty to learn from it on an ongoing basis. It’s fascinating to see that the portfolio is actually outperforming the market when I consider that three of my biggest disappointments in Chipotle (CMG), Under Armour (UA) and TripAdvisor (TRIP) have had such a drag on results and represent 12 of the 51 total positions. The upside to this is that it is certainly possible that these three companies are all starting to recover a bit from self-inflicted wounds suffered over the past few years. If so this may be a catalyst that could help widen the gap between the portfolio’s returns and the market’s over the coming quarters and years. I reckon time will tell us all we need to know.
Click here for my personal holdings.
- For my tracking purposes I kept it simple and assumed $1,000 invested into each individual BBN position based on the closing price on the date each recommendation was published for our members. This was equally weighted with $1,000 also going into the S&P 500 (SPY) based on the closing price of the same date. I use the SPY as it is dividend adjusted.
- The logic behind my scoring is that BBNs by their very nature were time-sensitive recommendations for the service. We were telling our members at that moment we felt these were our best ideas so it’s only natural that they should be compared to the market at that same point in time.
- We were all afforded the same opportunity to choose the stocks we felt most strongly about out of our entire portfolio of holdings (around 32 or so companies). If there was overlap that was just fine, it only added to our service’s conviction at the time.
- When we closed the portfolio I had recommended 51 total positions in 17 different companies.
- Some months I picked one idea, many months I picked two.
- Stocks on hold in the portfolio could not be chosen. We didn’t like the potential conflicting message that communicated to our members.
- Some positions were subsequently sold from the portfolio after we had chosen them for BBNs. My portfolio of recommendations assumes we simply held onto those positions as it’s in line with my general portfolio strategy anyway. However once a position was sold it was no longer on the table for future BBNs as it wasn’t in the portfolio anymore.
- My largest position is Ellie Mae (ELLI) which was recommended seven times.
- My smallest positions are Boston Beer (SAM) and Walt Disney (DIS) which were recommended one time each.
I'll continue to keep track of this portfolio going forward as I believe there will be plenty to learn from it on an ongoing basis. It’s fascinating to see that the portfolio is actually outperforming the market when I consider that three of my biggest disappointments in Chipotle (CMG), Under Armour (UA) and TripAdvisor (TRIP) have had such a drag on results and represent 12 of the 51 total positions. The upside to this is that it is certainly possible that these three companies are all starting to recover a bit from self-inflicted wounds suffered over the past few years. If so this may be a catalyst that could help widen the gap between the portfolio’s returns and the market’s over the coming quarters and years. I reckon time will tell us all we need to know.
Click here for my personal holdings.
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