Like the fighter who says “if you think I look bad, you should see the other guy,” a few hard blows have landed on the Moose Pond portfolio but we are still ahead of the broad market indices this year by slightly more than 10%.
Using the performance benchmark report in Bivio, the internal rate of return for the Moose Pond portfolio was a negative 27.6% year-to-date on October 31. In comparison, the Vanguard Total Market Index Fund was down 38.6% and the Vanguard S&P 500 index Fund was down 38.5% for the same 10-month period.
It will take a strong post-election rally to take the edge off the losses for this year. Stock valuations are at a low for several decades. So while there has to be pony in here somewhere, no one can be sure exactly when we’ll find it. In the interim, we should continue to follow out investment objectives and remain fully invested and commit new cash.
We do have an opportunity to replace several of our stocks with ones that have a higher projected average for the next five years. More to follow on that.
Here are performance reports for the one month and 12 month periods ending on October 31, 2008.