Investing

How was everyone's 2017?

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  • Jan 15th, 2018 9:01 pm
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Deal Fanatic
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May 11, 2014
6582 posts
9090 upvotes
Rankin Inlet, NU

How was everyone's 2017?

Hey guys;

I hope everyone had a successful 2017! Stocks have been crazy good this year, so I think it would be relatively hard to lose this year.

I myself had some large successes and some some mistakes/failures which I will share.

My Air Canada stake has done tremendously well. I have started around $13-14 and ended the year over $25. I did pare down my position as I found that my portfolio was over-invested in the company. Nevertheless, focusing on a company with growing earnings, improving fundamentals and that was discounted for no good reason has paid off very well!

My strategy this year was focusing on people's fears and taking advantage of them. Marc Cohodes short-selling campaigns have truly paid off well for me. I have invested in both Exchange Income Corporation and Badger Daylighting, two of his largest short positions. These companies have solid cash flow and earnings. Initial fears of their solvency had pushed their shares down to $28ish, and $23ish to which I have taken advantage of. I have sold off BAD ($29ish) and gone back in as it goes back down($25-27) many times. Exchange Income Corp I have held onto for dividend purposes and have sat on at least +20% gain on share price alone. Bank of Internet (BOFI) has also had large swings. I am average $26ish and have seen it go up and down. I believe their fundamentals, growing business, and increasing interest rates will ultimately pay off big. So far, I am sitting on a big gain.

Another big success was Hawaiian Holdings. I made good trade on the news Southwest Airlines was planning to enter the Hawaiian marketplace. The shares sold off substantially with over 30% drop. I felt this news was way over the top and had entered at around $33. With the bankruptcy of Island Air, the shares jumped right back up to $40. I did sell early around $38, but I still made a quick buck.

Volkswagen was also a good selection. The fears of the company on Dieselgate has made them an unpopular selection over the likes of Tesla. I really focused on the their earnings, cashflow and recovering purchase metrics to buy into them. I am sitting on a decent gain so far and hope to continue adding to my position in the following year.

Conversely, targeting Marc Cohodes trades also have hurt me in terms of Home Capital Group. While the company had solid numbers, banks/mortgage companies have a big vulnerability in that they rely on deposits to function. The fear that existed at the start of the year eroded my position and I lost +$20K on my position as I sold. I truly believed that Home Capital Group was fine and that they would recover. Sure enough, as fears subsided, the shares grew back up from $7ish back to $17. i could have easily recovered my funds, however things were really unsure. I guess my biggest lesson was that a company that relies on people's deposits are vulnerable. GIC and HISA investors are the type that do not like uncertainty and so if you have news that shakes that confidence, you might get hurt. No matter how big of systems we have in place such as CDIC, people are always going to get scared.

Although I sold off early, I still own 4 shares of Volaris Aviation. They are a high-growth ULCC in Mexico and I believe that they will do well. I haven't considered the big risks of NAFTA eating into their business. They are still profitable, but their cash flows in Mexican Pesos and their costs in US$ really dampers their shares. I made a small loss with them, but I do believe in the company. With the shares now cracking below $9, I am planning to go back in. I have learnt that politics does still play a big role especially in economies (eg. Mexico) that are still developing, and rely on unstable trade relations (Trump America).

As of Friday last week, I am sitting on a 40.8% gain on my trading portfolio. I am very pleased with my result especially considering my gains were wiped out and then some earlier this year.

Thanks to everyone on this board for their insights and ideas. Even for those who's opinions I don't agree with, I have definitely learnt about different investing ideas and rationales and this knowledge is what allows me to be more confident in the things I do.

What about everyone else? What successes and mistakes have you done this year?
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88 replies
Deal Addict
Jan 14, 2013
2216 posts
2059 upvotes
Toronto
Congrats on a great year. Typically I'm a fairly boring investor (long term, blue chip, dividend growers) but since the first week of November I've finally dabbled in some riskier trades and for the most part have come out really well.
My TFSA is at it's all time high, and my trading account has generated a 22% return (gains aren't realized however) in two months.

I'm also in that EIF dip with you, an unbelievable bargain now looking back. I've also bought and traded my way to really really low average costs on ENF and ENB in the last little bit.

Currently I'm holding some ugly speculative plays that I'm hoping turn around, but I'm down in them all at the moment.

Cheers to a great year everyone and wishing you all continued 2018 success
Penalty Box
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Jul 11, 2008
4368 posts
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Away from RFD idiots
best year of my life. 500x ++++ gains. no more wage slave. financial freedom.
..
Deal Fanatic
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May 11, 2014
6582 posts
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Rankin Inlet, NU
mathiewannabe wrote: best year of my life. 500x ++++ gains. no more wage slave. financial freedom.
Care to elaborate?
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Deal Fanatic
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May 11, 2014
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Rankin Inlet, NU
mathiewannabe wrote: Cryptocurrencies.
Hope you sold some to lock some of those gains in.
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Penalty Box
User avatar
Jul 11, 2008
4368 posts
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Away from RFD idiots
xgbsSS wrote: Hope you sold some to lock some of those gains in.
You too.
..
Deal Addict
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Oct 14, 2015
2116 posts
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I'm not counting any chickens or eggs.
My spare time is spent listening to things like this:

Pi$$ing away millions.
Deal Fanatic
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May 11, 2014
6582 posts
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Rankin Inlet, NU
IrwinW wrote: I'm not counting any chickens or eggs.
My spare time is spent listening to things like this:

Sorry, my post is not so much about bragging about what gains we have seen, but rather looking at what worked well and what didn't. I believe that prudent investors need to reflect on this and learn from these things. I definitely made some big successes which outweighed the mistake I made, but the mistakes are important to look at as well.

I will definitely have to listen when I get some free time! I like Planet Money Podcast myself :)
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Deal Addict
Feb 26, 2017
2902 posts
4581 upvotes
Results have been a bit mixed this year . TD, RY, BNS, BAM, T, AQN and BIP all did really well. Took a hit on HCG as well which has been my largest loss to date (about 85% on my initial investment). I started a US portfolio which managed to lose money (I'll probably be doing more index investing next year for US/International). Having a high allocation to pipelines also hurt.

I'll probably be up about 8% which is better than being down but a bit disapointing. Positives are it's been my best contribution year yet and my dividends are up 70% from last year.
Deal Addict
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May 6, 2010
3203 posts
477 upvotes
Markham
Got spanked for playing the option markets. I made money off the covered call option trades but punished by the lowered stock prices. The stock prices recovered a bit in the last few days but the things that saved my portfolio once again were boring banking and utility stocks. Sweet, sweet dividends and capital appreciation.

Made some money off a few swing trades. Overall, about 1% return this year, if I'm lucky.
Deal Addict
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Nov 4, 2012
1145 posts
544 upvotes
I made one mistake.

I sold TEVA accidentally at a lost. I was planning to sell only half position. But I pressed the wrong button and sold the full position. I was averaging at 14/share. I sold at 12/share for a 1.4k lost. My plan was to sell and buy it again the next day but the price started to increase too much and I gave up.

Overall I still made some money. I don't know how to see the % gain/lost on CIBC.

I don't have cryptocurrency.
Deal Fanatic
Nov 9, 2013
5885 posts
7465 upvotes
Edmonton, AB
2017 was good, some mistakes, some wins. Thankfully the wins outnumber the losses and overall I'm in the black!

I feel like I did less as the year went on, which is a good thing I suppose. I've got cash piling up in my account but everything I look at is meh.
Buy right, hold tight. Keep calm and go long.
Sr. Member
Aug 22, 2012
836 posts
903 upvotes
Mark Town
This year is good year for US and European stocks. Maybe worldwide stocks except Canada

One account holding primarily HSBC (bought at 30 last year and added at 40 early this year). 25% price gain plus 5% dividend yield.

The whole Canadian stock portforlio does OK (primarily holding BCE and TRP) at 8%.
Member
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Feb 27, 2013
275 posts
368 upvotes
Calgary
Image

Note this is YTD, without December settling
Blue = RRSP, composition is ~70% ETFs, 20% cannabis and 10% Activision Blizzard
Green = LIRA, composition is 100% ETFs
Yellow = TFSA, composition is 25% MFs (which need to die like the plague, it's a long story but selling them in January), 55% ETFs, 20% individuals stocks: energy, cannabis, lease/capital, automotive.

Recently started a small Crypto play, 2.8% of my total portfolio on a cost basis, now 5.7% on a market value basis - sitting at a 98% return.
Total Portfolio = 76.9% equity, 17.4% fixed income, 5.7% crypto. Equity piece can further be segmented geographically: 36.9% Canada, 31.1% US, 14.1% Europe, 11.4% Asia and 6.5% emerging.

As OP alluded to, it was hard for me to do much wrong this year. Comparing my LIRA which is a pure ETF play to my other accounts where I do active trading, it's quite clear that the equity plays I did make paid off. Crypto is still new to me, showing good promise but not holding my breath; I'd like to look at it in 5 years and see either -90% or +5,000-10,000% hahaha. In the new year I'll be rebalancing my ETFs, which includes selling those pesky MFs and taking advantage of my RRSP and LIRA for maximum withholding tax efficiencies. I will also be bringing my Crypto up to 5% on a cost basis. By the end of January my portfolio should look more like 80% ETFs, 5% Crypto and 15% individual stocks.
~Let your actions reflect your desires
Deal Addict
Dec 3, 2014
2348 posts
1840 upvotes
Ontario
I think I’m up about 15% this year. Held too much cash throughout but hopefully that’ll pay off at some point.

Obvious winners were stocks that didn’t require much imagination like FB, AAPL, AMZN. My less exciting dividend stocks did ok as well. A few were stagnant. Down in a couple also.

I think I was a little too cautious this year. There was a a lot of money to be made in marijuana and bitcoin. Selling WEED was probably my dumbest move of the year, but I’m not about to go chasing gains. It’s a pendulum.

Good luck in 2018!
Deal Fanatic
Dec 6, 2006
5805 posts
1972 upvotes
Toronto
hameljon wrote: Image

Note this is YTD, without December settling
Blue = RRSP, composition is ~70% ETFs, 20% cannabis and 10% Activision Blizzard
Nice gain there. What's the story for the 80% gain this year?
Deal Addict
Dec 11, 2007
1958 posts
582 upvotes
Markham
Undperforming the indices this year ever so slightly (~1.5%, +14.4% vs +15.9% from the tri-index benchmark), but pretty happy with the results considering I don't own any crypto, weed, or tech

The indicators I care more about, dividend income growth, was up strongly by 18.4% this year. 10.6% came from new funds / rebalance / reinvestment, and 7.8% from intrinsic div growth. Could probably push towards 20% growth but I'm letting divs build cash for now.
Deal Addict
User avatar
Aug 4, 2014
3963 posts
4723 upvotes
Toronto, ON
On one hand, selling AAPL in January for $121 and change was a mistake. But on the other hand, sticking to the plan to 1) gradually replace individual stocks with index ETFs and 2) avoid crypto-weed temptations while 3) not underperforming aggressive CCP benchmark was a success :)

Overall, a great year. We earned, saved and invested more than ever before. And, as our portfolio is getting closer to 1M, I don’t have any more jitters about managing it - which I guess is also a success :)
Member
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Feb 27, 2013
275 posts
368 upvotes
Calgary
boyohboy wrote: Nice gain there. What's the story for the 80% gain this year?
Yeah it's been a killer year for ATVI, it was a recommendation from one of my friends actually when I had some cash lying around. I scoped it out and it looked like the were undervalued at that time (bought it November when it was dipping down) and they've only been trending upwards since inception. They continue to report strong improving performance, so I had no reason to expect otherwise given all their investments to stay on top in their markets, consist expansion to esports is also very promising. Currently sitting at 72.40% for me, I may cash it soon though.
~Let your actions reflect your desires

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