As the final market day of 2023 closes, how'd everyone do in 2023?

Hopefully (surely) a lot better than 2022?

Looks like I ended up with a ~18.4% 20% return this year. Made last years losses back, plus some.

Let's hope the trend continues in 2024. If the interest rate cuts happen as forecasted, that should keep things moving in the right direction.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RogueJSK, December 31, 2023 08:08 PM

My what?

I honestly don't know. I don't track my retirement accounts closely. I'm still hesitant to look after the past 3 years. I'm guessing a small return and my contributions keeping me with an increased balance more than my ROI.

I was up 19.29%, BUT the S&P 500 was up 24.23% in 2023.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfe 21:
I'm still hesitant to look after the past 3 years.

You shouldn't be. I suspect you'd be pleasantly surprised.

2020 saw a sharp drop in the market at the start of the pandemic but just as sharp of a rebound, finishing the year significantly higher than it was pre-COVID. 2021 was then a good year. 2022 was a down year. But 2023 more than made up for it.

So 3 of the last 4 years saw overall market increases in the high teens or 20s. 2022 and its double digit losses was the outlier.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK: 2022 was a down year. But 2023 more than made up for it.

So 3 of the last 4 years saw overall market increases in the high teens or 20s. 2022 and its double digit losses was the outlier.

My investments this year have only clawed back half of what was lost in 2022. This is why we're currently looking for a different (better) investment advisor.

Oof. Need greater diversification, perhaps?

Do you at least know what tanked you so badly in 2022? The overall market was down ~19%. I was down ~16%, holding primarily broad market index funds.

Or was it just that you only saw single digit returns this year?

Good year for us. My work 401(k) up about 27.5% after being down about 18% last year.

My rollover retirement account (which I manage) did very well (thanks in no small part to Nvidia and Axon).

I probably invest with more risk than I should, but I've done alright.

I’m too old to take much risk. Other than Apple, Amazon and Wells, I went with Ibonds, CDs and Treasury Bills. Basically I made 5% that offset the 4.5% we drew out.

The low-risk play is smart since you're actively living off that. Unfortunately, if the cuts to the interest rate down to 3.5% appear as forecasted in 2024, relying on stuff like CDs won't be viable for all of next year or into the following.

I Bonds did well for a no-risk short-term investment for the past few years (especially through last year's rough market), but I can make several percentage points more in my high yield savings account or in CDs than they're currently producing with their mere 3.8% variable rate. I cashed out most of my I-Bonds a few months back, after the older higher variable rate periods ended. They'll sit in short term savings/CDs until the interest rates drop, then go back into my brokerage account.

Very well thanks to Apple, Amazon, Broadcom, Microsoft, Invidia, and Tesla. Uber hasn't done too badly either. Looking into AI stocks for 2024.

The cumulative average for us is 4%.

We're retired and so are in more conservative funds. But, I'm still pretty underwhelmed.

My 457 25.16% and my DROP 22.27%.

401K is up about 24%.
Company stock is up 27%.
My Apple/GS 4.25% savings acct has been fun to watch grow, as well.

I have no idea, as I don’t even track it/them.

I moved everything to fixed income just before the plandemic so I don't even pay attention to it anymore. I do track gold and silver PM spots.

Gold +13.18%
Silver -0.58%

quote:

Originally posted by wolfe 21:
I honestly don't know. I don't track my retirement accounts closely. I'm still hesitant to look after the past 3 years. I'm guessing a small return and my contributions keeping me with an increased balance more than my ROI.

This could be very detrimental to your assets. A firsthand example is myself and many coworkers contribute to a 457 account held by one of the major financial institutions. A few years ago, many were paying extra for the institution to manage their accounts and never looked at the performance.

I started researching funds within the account that were available for investing. What I found is the accounts managed by the institution were severely underperforming compared to other available funds. I simply started independently researching the available funds, found the best performers, and moved my assets accordingly. This yielded an additional gain of roughly +20%.

Also, using an Internet search engine of your choosing, a good starting point may be a search for "best performing mutual funds".

401K +15%
ESOP +28%

Back to where I was when Idiot In Chief was put in office.

26% on my main account, 17.7% on another and 36.7% on my third account. I did much better in the previous two years than I did this year.

Overall I have doubled my account balance in the last three years with my highest gain being 385% increase in the last three years. I made a lot of money on oil related stocks when crude went negative.

Mine landed short of inflation Mostly cash (T bills) but I'm very risk averse at this stage in my life.