I'm sure that I'm not alone in being glad to see 2011 appear in the rearview mirror. Perhaps I missed something, but it strikes me that it was a year when it mattered not a whit WHAT strategy was employed, if it worked for a while, if it didn't work for very long, if it forced investors and traders into an endless game of "catch up". A case could be made for christening 2011 the "Year of the Whipsaw".
In keeping with my practice of publishing quarterly reviews of my real money retirement portfolio, which I started at the end of Q1, 2011, here's how 2011 ended. As I've noted previously, and I state in my profile, the portfolio is of the absolute return variety, constructed to provide the following:
- Generate high yield/income
- Preserve capital
- Increase capital
As of December 31, 2011, holdings and weights were as follows in descending order of weighting:
Holding: Weight: Change (Weight)
GIM (Templeton Global Income) 20.90 (-0.50%)
MMP (Magellan Midstream Part.) 8.82 (+0.25%)
TOO (Teekay Offshore Part.) 7.97 (+0.04%)
KMR (Kinder Morgan Mgmt.) 7.17 (+1.30%)
MO (Altria) 7.16 (+0.18%)
JNJ (Johnson & Johnson) 6.79 (-0.57%)
PVX (Provident Energy Ltd.) 6.36 (+0.58%)
STO (Statoil) 6.25 (+0.49%)
GG (Goldcorp, Inc.) 4.83 (-0.62%)
SDS (ProShares UIltrashort S&P 500) 4.81 (-1.14%)
HIX (Western High Income) 4.45 (-0.24%)
TEI (Templeton Emerg.Mkt. Inc.) 4.22 (+0.06%)
BIP (Brookfield Infrastructure Part.) 3.77 (+0.14%)
FTE (France Telecom) 2.09 (-0.31%)
ESCOF.PK (Enel SpA) 1.88 (+0.55%)
Cash 1.34 (+1.04%)
O (Realty Income) 1.19 (+0.01%)
Despite some missteps on my part, as noted in the Q3 update, and an arguably tough market, the portfolio managed to post a yearly gain of +4.04%, while the market, as defined by the S&P ended up completely flat, and generated a yield of 5.90%.
Additional disclosure: I am long all securities mentioned in the article.
