2017 results thread

[clutch]

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

Congrats, that’s awesome.

 

+1 on congrats. How did you convince yourself to continue to hold when it started reaching significant amounts?

[rkbabang]

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

Congrats, that’s awesome.

 

+1 on congrats. How did you convince yourself to continue to hold when it started reaching significant amounts?

 

And how did you convince yourself to go all in on crypto to begin with?  I've been convinced that crypto was going to be huge and life changing since 2014 yet I never put in significant amounts do to the risk and due to the fact that I didn't think it was going to go exponential until sometime in the 2020s.    I thought I had time and I didn't want it sitting as dead money until then.  I'm not complaining my crypto gains have been incredible, but they could have been massive because I invested far too little even when I knew better.  One thing that is good though is that I invested so little that I'm still holding and am not under pressure to sell.

 

Congratulations for not only having the insight, but for having to courage to put your money where your thinking was.

 

[Fat Pitch]

If you guys don't know who Roger Ver is, I'd suggest you look up his story.

 

I've heard about Bitcoin in 2013 and passed it off as a fad (no reading or digging in). In late 2016 I came across it again and realized it hasn't went away so I decided to dig into it. This was the first time I've read the white paper which can be found here: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

 

With my libertarian background this whole concept of money not controlled by central banks but by math really opened my eyes. Immediately I knew this is going to be big. The creator of bitcoin said it best "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."

 

The only reason I went in big was after the Perry decision in the GSE lawsuit. How can such a corrupt ass court not see the Constitution was violated in the treatment of the preferred shareholders? This was my f the system and gov't moment and decided to go all in on crypto. If you don't hold your private keys, then you have no property rights.

 

What convinced me to hold was simple, there's trillions of dollars in wealth that's stored off shore because people don't trust their governments. This money will flow into crypto, there's no doubt in my mind about it.

 

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

Congrats, that’s awesome.

 

+1 on congrats. How did you convince yourself to continue to hold when it started reaching significant amounts?

 

And how did you convince yourself to go all in on crypto to begin with?  I've been convinced that crypto was going to be huge and life changing since 2014 yet I never put in significant amounts do to the risk and due to the fact that I didn't think it was going to go exponential until sometime in the 2020s.    I thought I had time and I didn't want it sitting as dead money until then.  I'm not complaining my crypto gains have been incredible, but they could have been massive because I invested far too little even when I knew better.  One thing that is good though is that I invested so little that I'm still holding and am not under pressure to sell.

 

Congratulations for not only having the insight, but for having to courage to put your money where your thinking was.

[SnarkyPuppy]

If you guys don't know who Roger Ver is, I'd suggest you look up his story.

 

I've heard about Bitcoin in 2013 and passed it off as a fad (no reading or digging in). In late 2016 I came across it again and realized it hasn't went away so I decided to dig into it. This was the first time I've read the white paper which can be found here: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

 

With my libertarian background this whole concept of money not controlled by central banks but by math really opened my eyes. Immediately I knew this is going to be big. The creator of bitcoin said it best "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."

 

The only reason I went in big was after the Perry decision in the GSE lawsuit. How can such a corrupt ass court not see the Constitution was violated in the treatment of the preferred shareholders? This was my f the system and gov't moment and decided to go all in on crypto. If you don't hold your private keys, then you have no property rights.

 

What convinced me to hold was simple, there's trillions of dollars in wealth that's stored off shore because people don't trust their governments. This money will flow into crypto, there's no doubt in my mind about it.

 

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

Congrats, that’s awesome.

 

+1 on congrats. How did you convince yourself to continue to hold when it started reaching significant amounts?

 

And how did you convince yourself to go all in on crypto to begin with?  I've been convinced that crypto was going to be huge and life changing since 2014 yet I never put in significant amounts do to the risk and due to the fact that I didn't think it was going to go exponential until sometime in the 2020s.    I thought I had time and I didn't want it sitting as dead money until then.  I'm not complaining my crypto gains have been incredible, but they could have been massive because I invested far too little even when I knew better.  One thing that is good though is that I invested so little that I'm still holding and am not under pressure to sell.

 

Congratulations for not only having the insight, but for having to courage to put your money where your thinking was.

 

I started listening to Naval Ravikant and I felt he had a strong grip on a lot of philosophies that were more within my circle of competence.  The one area I didn't understand that he was (and still is) extremely bullish on was crypto and that made me look a lot closer.  Curious to hear your thoughts on how things play out from here?  BTC replacing gold (~$350k per BTC) is such an obvious thesis to me - but ETH is harder to value.   

 

I do like FUN (Funfair coin) - large industry ripe for disruption;  solid dev team;  +value for both casinos (reduces cost) and customers (increases trust).   

 

Interestingly, FNMA prefs continue to be my largest position and this should resolve itself in the next 12months.

[flesh]

29% equities account.

14.5% average cash position

1 loser

 

No down years or s and p  under performance years since I switched from indexing in 12'

 

Continued 7-8% out performance average.

 

Another good but not great year.

 

Fewest sins of commission in a cy.

 

 

[mbreject]

main account +10%, with 60% cash

 

ira account -7% w/ 68% cash - too much oil and energy

[Aberhound]

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

I stopped counting my crypto gains as Buffett says it is better not to watch the ticker and to avoid the noise. I missed XRP so probably less. I continue to add on big dips like just after Christmas and just before Thanksgiving. My life changed little as I became even more of a value investor. I still drive around my $2000 car. I stopped drinking booze and coffee this year when I realized they were both interfering with my thinking and so I could buy more crypto. That has created a far better change in my life than some additional wealth and one unexpected side effect of stopping all drinking and coffee is that my mild but worsening heart disease went away soon afterwards. Does anybody know why? (My impression was that the few drinks a week of wine or beer that I drank had the biggest effect). People spending money on coffee and booze should reconsider as the real cost of a $5 coffee is something like $5000 $5X10X10x10 by 2020 and probably many health effects as well so many who are poor, struggling or sickly in 2020 will often have only themselves to blame. The fear of loss being the #1 excuse not to buy is accordingly irrational. (And the #2 excuse don't know how ended when the public listings became available). This fall I have started to run into customers who are willing to pay in crypto which I always request for international customers. Many businessmen now realize the benefit of using crypto to pay cross border payments. It is nice to be paid in crypto and have it double and redouble soon thereafter as I am more motivated to do the work. I hold BTC, LTC, BCH, FUEL and ETH. I calculate the average daily compounding rate and generally buy that (which generally tells you which token enjoys the fastest rate of adoption). I also try to keep diversified between cryptos by buying tokens that are expected to go up when the competing token goes down like BTC and BCH and I stop buying when I get above my planned weighting due to massive gains. Of my coins currently FUEL and LTC having the fastest daily average compounding followed by BCH, ETH and BTC. I look for gains of at least 1% per day. I have been loading up on LTC on this big dip partly because I expect it to enjoy the soonest and greatest increase in the rate of adoption and partly because I doubled my planned weighting. XRP easily exceeded this average daily compounding but my bias against a banker's coin makes me irrational.

[SnarkyPuppy]

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

I stopped counting my crypto gains as Buffett says it is better not to watch the ticker and to avoid the noise. I missed XRP so probably less. I continue to add on big dips like just after Christmas and just before Thanksgiving. My life changed little as I became even more of a value investor. I still drive around my $2000 car. I stopped drinking booze and coffee this year when I realized they were both interfering with my thinking and so I could buy more crypto. That has created a far better change in my life than some additional wealth and one unexpected side effect of stopping all drinking and coffee is that my mild but worsening heart disease went away soon afterwards. Does anybody know why? (My impression was that the few drinks a week of wine or beer that I drank had the biggest effect). People spending money on coffee and booze should reconsider as the real cost of a $5 coffee is something like $5000 $5X10X10x10 by 2020 and probably many health effects as well so many who are poor, struggling or sickly in 2020 will often have only themselves to blame. The fear of loss being the #1 excuse not to buy is accordingly irrational. (And the #2 excuse don't know how ended when the public listings became available). This fall I have started to run into customers who are willing to pay in crypto which I always request for international customers. Many businessmen now realize the benefit of using crypto to pay cross border payments. It is nice to be paid in crypto and have it double and redouble soon thereafter as I am more motivated to do the work. I hold BTC, LTC, BCH, FUEL and ETH. I calculate the average daily compounding rate and generally buy that (which generally tells you which token enjoys the fastest rate of adoption). I also try to keep diversified between cryptos by buying tokens that are expected to go up when the competing token goes down like BTC and BCH and I stop buying when I get above my planned weighting due to massive gains. Of my coins currently FUEL and LTC having the fastest daily average compounding followed by BCH, ETH and BTC. I look for gains of at least 1% per day. I have been loading up on LTC on this big dip partly because I expect it to enjoy the soonest and greatest increase in the rate of adoption and partly because I doubled my planned weighting. XRP easily exceeded this average daily compounding but my bias against a banker's coin makes me irrational.

 

What the hell is daily compounding rate?  I'm bullish on crypto (and I told myself I'd be nicer in the New Year), but you quite literally sound like an insane person. 

 

This is not value investing - this is venture capital investing.  Low probability but +expected value asymmetric bets (long term) mixed with frontrunning a very inefficient and illiquid market ahead of the likely inflow of larger volume (short term). 

 

The value of any of these tokens is a total guess - I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on actual valuation of any of these aside from bitcoin.  (Bitcoin is the only coin I have a thesis for:  flight-to-safety store-of-value which cannot be tampered with by any government - it will replace gold which itself is valued based on the same properties that bitcoin has, but does not have the immutable decentralized and non-tamperable aspects of bitcoin;  first mover advantage will be solidified when wall street begins trading bitcoin first).

 

I like ETH, but how do you value the token ether?  I'm in it to frontrun the transition to proof of stake (lowering velocity -> increasing value) and wall-street liquidity inflow - and its simply event driven investing.  But long term what is the value of an Ether?  What is the value of a FUEL?  What is the value of a LTC?  Why LTC instead of Zcash instead of Monero instead of IOTA?

[investor-man]

45.36%. Biggest winners were GNCMA and Autohellas, which I both had a large stake in and both doubled (Thanks Packer!). I also did fairly well with GXE.TO ~50% since I bought quite a bit as it bottomed. The rest of my holdings went roughly with the market.

 

P.S. I got a 10x on my Ethereum, but I only own one :) I'm a software engineer and I think the tech is cool - especially Ethereum - but I can't make myself feel comfortable putting a significant amount of money in it. I think all of us can anecdotally point to someone we know offering advice on crypto currencies who has no business doing so, including the receptionist at my company. This scares me.

[DocSnowball]

Congratulations! Really happy for you!!! I share your feelings on the Perry decision (just don't have the same returns for 2017!)

 

You've made more % return in a year than I will in my life, so feel free to ignore my 2c - but if you haven't yet, take a look at "A short history of financial euphoria" by John Kenneth Galbraith. Once leverage is introduced into cryptocurrencies, it will start to meet a lot of the criteria mentioned in the book.

 

If you guys don't know who Roger Ver is, I'd suggest you look up his story.

 

I've heard about Bitcoin in 2013 and passed it off as a fad (no reading or digging in). In late 2016 I came across it again and realized it hasn't went away so I decided to dig into it. This was the first time I've read the white paper which can be found here: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

 

With my libertarian background this whole concept of money not controlled by central banks but by math really opened my eyes. Immediately I knew this is going to be big. The creator of bitcoin said it best "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."

 

The only reason I went in big was after the Perry decision in the GSE lawsuit. How can such a corrupt ass court not see the Constitution was violated in the treatment of the preferred shareholders? This was my f the system and gov't moment and decided to go all in on crypto. If you don't hold your private keys, then you have no property rights.

 

What convinced me to hold was simple, there's trillions of dollars in wealth that's stored off shore because people don't trust their governments. This money will flow into crypto, there's no doubt in my mind about it.

 

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

Congrats, that’s awesome.

 

+1 on congrats. How did you convince yourself to continue to hold when it started reaching significant amounts?

 

And how did you convince yourself to go all in on crypto to begin with?  I've been convinced that crypto was going to be huge and life changing since 2014 yet I never put in significant amounts do to the risk and due to the fact that I didn't think it was going to go exponential until sometime in the 2020s.    I thought I had time and I didn't want it sitting as dead money until then.  I'm not complaining my crypto gains have been incredible, but they could have been massive because I invested far too little even when I knew better.  One thing that is good though is that I invested so little that I'm still holding and am not under pressure to sell.

 

Congratulations for not only having the insight, but for having to courage to put your money where your thinking was.

[Fat Pitch]

Aberhound sounds deranged so I'm gonna ignore him.

 

As for how to value crypto, you gotta frame it in a way that makes sense to you. For me I merely asked myself: "What would you pay for an open source Visa protocol that anyone on planet Earth can use to transact cheaply, safely and no middleman to block the transaction" This will open up global trade on levels that are unimaginable for many people.

 

You should look at solid projects with a good development team behind it, but the valuations at the moment look insane even for myself. So I just focus on currencies that can address a % of the M1 global money supply.

 

If I went back 500 years and told the folks that Church and State will be separated I would be labelled a heretic and burned at the stake. Today I'm telling everyone that Money and State will be separated. Luckily for me I'm not burning at a stake  ;)

 

Went from living with my parents to quitting my job and purchasing a beach house with no mortgage. I can now pursue my passion without worry.

 

~12,000%

 

1. XRP

2. XMR

3. BCH

4. NEO

 

I was heavily invested in the GSE's pref at the start of the year, but the Perry beat down got me to switch gears. Went full out crypto... Now I have a sizable position back in the GSE prefs since the risk/reward is more favorable.

 

How much has your life changed after a 12000% year?

 

I stopped counting my crypto gains as Buffett says it is better not to watch the ticker and to avoid the noise. I missed XRP so probably less. I continue to add on big dips like just after Christmas and just before Thanksgiving. My life changed little as I became even more of a value investor. I still drive around my $2000 car. I stopped drinking booze and coffee this year when I realized they were both interfering with my thinking and so I could buy more crypto. That has created a far better change in my life than some additional wealth and one unexpected side effect of stopping all drinking and coffee is that my mild but worsening heart disease went away soon afterwards. Does anybody know why? (My impression was that the few drinks a week of wine or beer that I drank had the biggest effect). People spending money on coffee and booze should reconsider as the real cost of a $5 coffee is something like $5000 $5X10X10x10 by 2020 and probably many health effects as well so many who are poor, struggling or sickly in 2020 will often have only themselves to blame. The fear of loss being the #1 excuse not to buy is accordingly irrational. (And the #2 excuse don't know how ended when the public listings became available). This fall I have started to run into customers who are willing to pay in crypto which I always request for international customers. Many businessmen now realize the benefit of using crypto to pay cross border payments. It is nice to be paid in crypto and have it double and redouble soon thereafter as I am more motivated to do the work. I hold BTC, LTC, BCH, FUEL and ETH. I calculate the average daily compounding rate and generally buy that (which generally tells you which token enjoys the fastest rate of adoption). I also try to keep diversified between cryptos by buying tokens that are expected to go up when the competing token goes down like BTC and BCH and I stop buying when I get above my planned weighting due to massive gains. Of my coins currently FUEL and LTC having the fastest daily average compounding followed by BCH, ETH and BTC. I look for gains of at least 1% per day. I have been loading up on LTC on this big dip partly because I expect it to enjoy the soonest and greatest increase in the rate of adoption and partly because I doubled my planned weighting. XRP easily exceeded this average daily compounding but my bias against a banker's coin makes me irrational.

 

What the hell is daily compounding rate?  I'm bullish on crypto (and I told myself I'd be nicer in the New Year), but you quite literally sound like an insane person. 

 

This is not value investing - this is venture capital investing.  Low probability but +expected value asymmetric bets (long term) mixed with frontrunning a very inefficient and illiquid market ahead of the likely inflow of larger volume (short term). 

 

The value of any of these tokens is a total guess - I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on actual valuation of any of these aside from bitcoin.  (Bitcoin is the only coin I have a thesis for:  flight-to-safety store-of-value which cannot be tampered with by any government - it will replace gold which itself is valued based on the same properties that bitcoin has, but does not have the immutable decentralized and non-tamperable aspects of bitcoin;  first mover advantage will be solidified when wall street begins trading bitcoin first).

 

I like ETH, but how do you value the token ether?  I'm in it to frontrun the transition to proof of stake (lowering velocity -> increasing value) and wall-street liquidity inflow - and its simply event driven investing.  But long term what is the value of an Ether?  What is the value of a FUEL?  What is the value of a LTC?  Why LTC instead of Zcash instead of Monero instead of IOTA?

[SlowAppreciation]

If you guys don't know who Roger Ver is, I'd suggest you look up his story.

 

I saw some interviews with him a few weeks back. If I'm being honest, he seems extremely unstable and a complete blowhard. For example:

[rkbabang]

Aberhound sounds deranged so I'm gonna ignore him.

 

As for how to value crypto, you gotta frame it in a way that makes sense to you. For me I merely asked myself: "What would you pay for an open source Visa protocol that anyone on planet Earth can use to transact cheaply, safely and no middleman to block the transaction" This will open up global trade on levels that are unimaginable for many people.

 

You should look at solid projects with a good development team behind it, but the valuations at the moment look insane even for myself. So I just focus on currencies that can address a % of the M1 global money supply.

 

If I went back 500 years and told the folks that Church and State will be separated I would be labelled a heretic and burned at the stake. Today I'm telling everyone that Money and State will be separated. Luckily for me I'm not burning at a stake  ;)

 

I think you are correct.  500 years from now when historians look back at this era the event that will be considered most significant will be Satashi's publication of his white paper on Bitcoin.  It is the the shot heard 'round the world, it is Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the church door, it is one of those rare moments when the giant ship of history begins to change course, even if most of the people alive in the world at the time don't see it right away.

 

[Spekulatius]

The payoff of Luther’s thesis was not immediate, it costed Europe literally a hundred years of war until his ideas finally came to bear. He also died  being more or less on the run and bitter.

[rkbabang]

The payoff of Luther’s thesis was not immediate, it costed Europe literally a hundred years of war until his ideas finally came to bear. He also died  being more or less on the run and bitter.

 

Change is always chaotic. Do you think the nation state is going down without a fight?  These are monsters with armies and $trillions worth of weaponry.  The death throes of these beasts will be messy.  We may be about to live in interesting times I fear.

 

[orthopa]

Up 23.5%. Was higher mid year but PM took a dump. Holding PM, MO, V, FMNAH, FMNAJ BRK.

 

Totally missed the cryto run up. WAY out of my circle of competence.

[DeepSouth]

The payoff of Luther’s thesis was not immediate, it costed Europe literally a hundred years of war until his ideas finally came to bear. He also died  being more or less on the run and bitter.

 

Change is always chaotic. Do you think the nation state is going down without a fight?  These are monsters with armies and $trillions worth of weaponry.  The death throes of these beasts will be messy.  We may be about to live in interesting times I fear.

 

Would the US/Chinese military drone striking/executing bitcoin holders and miners be bullish or bearish for bitcoin? Would the Chinese government nationalizing 50%+ of global bitcoin mining capacity be bullish or bearish for bitcoin?

 

How do holders of bitcoin overthrow all of the world's nation states?

 

If your government decreed that bitcoin ownership is treason punishable by death and they would post massive rewards for anyone who turned in bitcoin holders, would you buy more bitcoin?

 

I'm bullish on bitcoin due to financial flows but I can't for the life of me understand the ideological proponents in the west.

[chesko182]

up 20% with an average 10% cash position.

 

all contribution came pretty much from Ally, BRK and GM. others barely moved and got killed (again) by ICON.

 

hopefully I learned a thing or two.

[Crip1]

Bucking the trend of outperformance, 2017 saw me up 16% and change for the year, inclusive of cash position. My weighted return for the most recent 1, 3 and 5 year time periods have lagged the S&P slightly on an annualized basis but, in aggregate, that lag over a 5 year period is not inconsequential. This is not wholly surprising as, historically, I’ve returned even to slightly worse than the S&P in up markets but much better in down markets. A long-term bull market has hurt my returns relative to the S&P. Long term (10-20 years), I’ve outperformed the S&P, but that outperformance is shrinking with every passing year.

There is a temptation to move everything into an S&P Index Fund and walk away, but I’m highly reluctant to do this as time has shown to be my friend (and, one of these years, mean reversion in and of itself will do the trick). There are two “mistakes” I’ve made which made 2017 less than desirable for me:

• Lack of focus. I’ve not spent to the time researching and learning as much as I should have. That will change in 2018.
  
• B of A Warrants. I sold out within a week of the Trump election in November of 2016 opining that the temporary euphoria would wear down and I’d be able to buy back more a few weeks down the road. WRONG! That decision ended up costing me big-time. My position on the warrants was sufficiently big that if I’d have held on to half of my position, my overall would have exceeded 20%.
  

Can’t do anything about the past, so am looking towards 2018. All the best, everyone.

-Crip

P. S. Cryptocurrencies are in the “Too Hard” pile.

 

 

 

 

[Sharad]

Return of 43%.

 

Made a lot of mental mistakes, notably:

 

1. Selling Fastenal (Nasdaq: FAST), which is supposed to be a long-term holding, in favour of quick trades (moving away from my circle of competence), and

2. yield-chasing, which is just stupid on my part.

 

For me, the return isn't the important result, it is learning from my mistakes, and trying to avoid them in the future. Hopefully, I'll learn to be more patient, and wait for investments to "come to me" instead of chasing returns. I'm hoping to become a better at stretching my holding period to 5-7 years for any "trades", and fish into polluted ponds of value (companies with good balance sheets in downtrodden industries).

[BG2008]

Fairly flat for the year in my IRA.  Held mostly FRPH and other RE names that I have exhaustively researched.  Mistake was buying into the Ciber liquidation and then not getting out when it became apparent that the thesis was different than I originally thought.  Did much better in terms of position sizing and cutting loss with other people's money than my own IRA. 

 

Mistakes to avoid in the future - If you've been sleep deprived for a week due to the birth of your son, don't buy anything.  As time goes on, I have a longer list of "don'ts" on my wall.   

 

Very impressive results for those that shared. 

[Sharad]

Mistakes to avoid in the future - If you've been sleep deprived for a week due to the birth of your son, don't buy anything.  As time goes on, I have a longer list of "don'ts" on my wall.   

 

Congratulations! Also, I am guilty as charged, in 2017.  :P

[TBW]

Up 2%

 

Longs +21.1%

Short  - 12.2%

Currency -6.9%

 

What a year. 

 

Shorts + currency were up 20% in the early part of the year mostly due to HCG/CAD fin shorts.  Once BRK got involved that +20% went to -20%.  Currency is short CAD/USD, which went wrong at the same time too.  Painful, but after all that happy to be flatish.

 

I really think that once the credit cycle turns in Canada these shorts will have large payoffs.  With home price -17% in Toronto from the peak, and B20 regulations restricting credit I would have thought market wouldn't be so optimistic on the future of mortgage lenders... 

 

Lesson in a raging bull market, shorting is hard.

[cubsfan]

+24% - I'll take it.

 

Should probably learn about bitcoin!

 

Congratulations to everyone. Shocking to see such huge years. Hope some of it rubs off!

 

 

[chrispy]

2015: -3.3%

2016: 2%

2017: 13.5%

 

Still learning but hoping my returns extrapolate linearly into the future  ;)

 

Sold MKL and bought FFH when it bottomed out for a nice boost.

A small position in UBNT was a big gain that offset my losses in OBE.  I must say that my envy of the FELP results in the 2016 thread caused me to buy OBE at the exactly wrong time like it was a lotto ticket... Luckily it only cost me about 260bps by year end.  Lesson learned, hopefully...

 

My long term goals will be met with 12%+ every year but now I need to beat the S&P.