Down goes the Dow

Flagpole wrote:

nearly retired wrote:

No word from Flagpole in a while. I wonder if he’s trying to find a credible assortment of diversified funds that could have beat SP500 like he’s claimed. That will be very, very hard to do, at least without being overweight technology, which he has repeatedly denied. Tech pulled the market along upward this year. Other than tech, only communications and consumer discretionary beat the index in 2023, and all other market sectors underperformed relative to the broader index. It would have to be a pretty magical (imaginary) portfolio that beat SP500 last year as well as having beat the DOW 35 out of the past 32 years as he brags. I’m reiterating my BS call.

Flagpole, put up or shut up.

Um...what?

1) The S&P 500 closed UP over 24% for 2023...over 26% if you include dividends.

2) I personally closed 2023 UP 23.68%. (It was at 23.72% as I reported earlier except for the last day, so the new number counts that last day). So, you were WRONG here to say that I said I did better than the S&P 500 for 2023.

3) What would make you think that my distribution of funds today is the same as it has been for me since 1989? As is the case with most investors, I wasn't given a portfolio of mutual funds with a set amount in them when I started and am just sitting on them. I started with nothing and invested (initially in very random ways) like clockwork since 1989 with the makeup of my holdings changing yearly as I invested in different things (usually by adding funds) and due to performance of held funds being different each year.

4) The NASDAQ (tech-heavy) closed 2023 UP 43%, so if I were so heavy in tech, I would have done a lot better on the year than I did. As it was, since I am extremely diversified, my stuff fell inbetween what the Dow (UP 13.7%) did and what the NASDAQ did. Shocking.

5) Put up or shut up? You want me to list all of my funds and tell you how much is in each one? How about no. You can blame Sally for that as he got just ONE fund of mine so wrong (he finally admitted it, but only after an exhaustive bit of me training him how to look up funds to see how they've done) and showed he didn't know how to find information about said fund. I don't need know-nothings trying to decipher my holdings, and I don't feel like spending my time trying to explain sh!t to people. I have more than you...that's all you need to know.

6) Does how much I have or how I have done help you pay your bills? Do your own investing and worry about your damn self.

seattle prattle wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

Um...what?

1) The S&P 500 closed UP over 24% for 2023...over 26% if you include dividends.

2) I personally closed 2023 UP 23.68%. (It was at 23.72% as I reported earlier except for the last day, so the new number counts that last day). So, you were WRONG here to say that I said I did better than the S&P 500 for 2023.

3) What would make you think that my distribution of funds today is the same as it has been for me since 1989? As is the case with most investors, I wasn't given a portfolio of mutual funds with a set amount in them when I started and am just sitting on them. I started with nothing and invested (initially in very random ways) like clockwork since 1989 with the makeup of my holdings changing yearly as I invested in different things (usually by adding funds) and due to performance of held funds being different each year.

4) The NASDAQ (tech-heavy) closed 2023 UP 43%, so if I were so heavy in tech, I would have done a lot better on the year than I did. As it was, since I am extremely diversified, my stuff fell inbetween what the Dow (UP 13.7%) did and what the NASDAQ did. Shocking.

5) Put up or shut up? You want me to list all of my funds and tell you how much is in each one? How about no. You can blame Sally for that as he got just ONE fund of mine so wrong (he finally admitted it, but only after an exhaustive bit of me training him how to look up funds to see how they've done) and showed he didn't know how to find information about said fund. I don't need know-nothings trying to decipher my holdings, and I don't feel like spending my time trying to explain sh!t to people. I have more than you...that's all you need to know.

6) Does how much I have or how I have done help you pay your bills? Do your own investing and worry about your damn self.

Flagpole, the bolded part above - that is an interesting comment.

I wonder what it is that you base that assertion upon. I am trying not to draw any foregone conclusions.

Flagpole wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Thank you for that response. You didn't have to offer it.

So, am I correct in saying that you have made a claim in a clearly boastful manner with no factual proof besides presumptions?

I say boastful because I can't really see why you would need to assert that you are richer than anyone else.

I always admired your claim that you never told a lie. And I am trying to reconcile these circumstances with that.

TIA.

1) Not boastful. Very likely and almost most assuredly fact. Yes, you can boast about facts, but that's not what I was doing here. More just giving the guy a nudge.

2) It is apparent that you do not know what a lie is. To begin with, a lie is not a falsehood. I can state a falsehood that is not a lie. For example, for a long while I was pretty sure that Roy Orbison was blind, and I know I referred to him as blind on more than one ocassion. I do not remember if someone told me he was blind or if I just assumed it based on his dark glasses that he always wore. I was not alone in thinking he was blind. For that to have been a lie, I would have to have known he was not blind and then still told people he was. In this particular case that you are stuggling with, I am taking statistics and a very strong likliehood and making a statement that is almost impossible to not be true. It would only be a lie if I knew it was not true and then still stated it was. To give a real world example, many people say Trump lied about building a wall. Well, we don't know. He DIDN'T build a wall when he said he would, but it's only a lie if he knew it wouldn't happen when he said it would. If you need more help with understanding this, let me know.

Sally Vix wrote:

agip wrote:

Flagpole has a 100% stock portfolio of techy funds and doesn't count his large cash pile in his return calculations.

With those two things...not so hard to get his numbers. If I chose not to count my bonds and cash as investments I probably did almost as well.

Flagpole has a lot of Vanguard funds and most of those funds have tech as their top holdings. VTI is one, for example. The top 9 holdings are tech. Those tech holdings has allowed VTI to beat the Dow Jones many of the years. In 2002 the Dow fell 17% while the NASDAQ ended up losing 77%. Those same tech funds that allowed VTI to beat the Dow many years were its demise in 2000-2002. Flagpole can't have it both ways. He can't beat the Dow on good years for a tech-heavy portfolio and then beat it still on bad years for a tech-heavy portfolio. This discussion is ridiculous.

seattle prattle wrote:

Sally Vix wrote:

For Flagpole to even be arguing this 32 out of 33 fairy tale reveals his lack of understanding on probabilities as well as lack of understanding with the stock market.

Flagpole's returns this year are virtually identical to the S&P 500 index.

In that his stock portfolio is in the form of mutual funds, he said, I think it would be likely that his mutual funds are similar to the S&P 500 in a general sense, taken collectively, or at least not terribly divergent from it.

In the last 12 years, comparing annual results for the DJIA vs S&P 500 indices, the DJIA performed higher for 5 or the 12 years, and S&P 500 performed 7 of 12 years.

That is almost a 50/50 split.

How could Flagpoles mutual funds have outpertformed the DJIA in 32 out of 33 years? Not logical, at least on that metric. Some years up, some down, but to almost always be on the up side? Can't see how that would could be.

Sally Vix wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Flagpole's returns this year are virtually identical to the S&P 500 index.

In that his stock portfolio is in the form of mutual funds, he said, I think it would be likely that his mutual funds are similar to the S&P 500 in a general sense, taken collectively, or at least not terribly divergent from it.

In the last 12 years, comparing annual results for the DJIA vs S&P 500 indices, the DJIA performed higher for 5 or the 12 years, and S&P 500 performed 7 of 12 years.

That is almost a 50/50 split.

How could Flagpoles mutual funds have outpertformed the DJIA in 32 out of 33 years? Not logical, at least on that metric. Some years up, some down, but to almost always be on the up side? Can't see how that would could be.

His portfolio likely aligns up much more with the S & P, rather than the Dow which consists of 30 largely industrials. His portfolio is a magical one that on those years which the Dow does great his magical portfolio still beats it and on bad years for the Dow when it does poorly his magical portfolio still beats it. Doesn't matter what the Dow Jones does, his magical portfolio is going to beat it. Dow up 100% one year, Flagpole up 101%. Dow down 85% another year, his magical portfolio only down 84%.

seattle prattle wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

1) Not boastful. Very likely and almost most assuredly fact. Yes, you can boast about facts, but that's not what I was doing here. More just giving the guy a nudge.

2) It is apparent that you do not know what a lie is. To begin with, a lie is not a falsehood. I can state a falsehood that is not a lie. For example, for a long while I was pretty sure that Roy Orbison was blind, and I know I referred to him as blind on more than one ocassion. I do not remember if someone told me he was blind or if I just assumed it based on his dark glasses that he always wore. I was not alone in thinking he was blind. For that to have been a lie, I would have to have known he was not blind and then still told people he was. In this particular case that you are stuggling with, I am taking statistics and a very strong likliehood and making a statement that is almost impossible to not be true. It would only be a lie if I knew it was not true and then still stated it was. To give a real world example, many people say Trump lied about building a wall. Well, we don't know. He DIDN'T build a wall when he said he would, but it's only a lie if he knew it wouldn't happen when he said it would. If you need more help with understanding this, let me know.

So you are just trying to get his goat, making presumptions to do so, though you feel they are well founded. Not a lie but could be a falsehood. Got it.

Back to the original point of the question raised by others, have you dug into the holdings of your mutual funds in order to ascertain that in fact, as you claim, you are not tech weighted? Or is that a presumption also (that might be a falsehood rather than an outright lie, as per distinctions discussed here)?

And I raise the question because it's common for growth funds these days to be weighted towards a tech bias.

Sally Vix wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Flagpole's returns this year are virtually identical to the S&P 500 index.

In that his stock portfolio is in the form of mutual funds, he said, I think it would be likely that his mutual funds are similar to the S&P 500 in a general sense, taken collectively, or at least not terribly divergent from it.

In the last 12 years, comparing annual results for the DJIA vs S&P 500 indices, the DJIA performed higher for 5 or the 12 years, and S&P 500 performed 7 of 12 years.

That is almost a 50/50 split.

How could Flagpoles mutual funds have outpertformed the DJIA in 32 out of 33 years? Not logical, at least on that metric. Some years up, some down, but to almost always be on the up side? Can't see how that would could be.

His portfolio likely aligns up much more with the S & P