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Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:30 pm
by Tyler9000
I know that advertising a personal project is generally bad form on a message board, but hopefully I've contributed enough here to earn an exception. I just accomplished something I'm proud of and wanted to share. And perhaps some here will find it helpful.

With all of my extra time, I've spent a lot of time lately playing with spreadsheets as a portfolio visualization tool. It started simply enough as a way to study the Permanent Portfolio when other portfolio websites did not have the right data, but eventually grew into a more comprehensive tool that could model a wide variety of Lazy Portfolios on demand. As I shared results among my investment comrades, I got some nice feedback and developed a few somewhat unique charts that look at investment returns in different ways. Eventually I realized it would be fun to share. So I built a website.

PortfolioCharts.com

Check it out. Or not! It's just a pet project and I'm not trying to turn it into a money making venture or anything, so I promise not to shill. But feel free to give it a spin.

Now I can finally check retirement accomplishment #1 off the list. :D

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 12:14 am
by A Life of FI
I like it - Easy to understand visual presentation of the behavior of the main portfolio types - I haven't seen it presented this elegantly anywhere else.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 8:08 am
by Dragline
Very nice. Especially for what you are charging. ;-)

Here are some others you might want to include if you get ambitious:

http://mebfaber.com/2013/07/31/asset-al ... ategies-2/

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 8:32 am
by almostthere
Very nicely done. If you can do that with excel, you really should start playing with R.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:16 pm
by Jack Jones
Minor nitpick:

No need to have the image on the front page link to itself.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 3:38 pm
by Tyler9000
Thanks all! I appreciate the feedback.

@Dragline -- Thanks for the portfolio tips. I'll put them in the queue.

@Jack Jones -- Good call. The theme I'm using automatically creates links as the default, but I think I fixed it for that one.

@almostthere -- Just when I feel like I can stop thinking about it for a while, here you go pointing me towards a new tool to learn. :) Working with Excel and Wordpress is simple enough, but learning a new language would definitely push my boundaries. I'll look into it.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 3:08 pm
by oldbeyond
And now more lazy portfolios are up it appears! Great work, I really like the perspective behind it. There is so much more than long-term CAGR to an investment. Also interesting how very different asset allocations all average a 5-6 % real return in the long run.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2015 11:18 am
by Tyler9000
Thanks oldbeyond. I plan to keep populating new lazy portfolios over time, so you might want to check back periodically. If anyone has a suggestion or special request, feel free to ask. And don't forget to try the calculators for yourself!

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:18 am
by Hankaroundtheworld
Hi, very nicely done! Just for my understanding, the CAGR is the result *without* dividend re-invested, right? Otherwise for US stockmarket, it would result in 7-8% over a long period, if I remember right

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 2:18 pm
by Tyler9000
The numbers do include reinvested dividends. They also account for inflation every individual year.

The point of the Funnel chart is to show how looking at a single CAGR number for the "long term" can sometimes be deceptive depending on the period you look at.

Image

For more info, the behavior I outlined in this post would also apply to total stock market charts. http://portfoliocharts.com/2015/07/17/s ... fat-tails/

The median real return for stocks over any 30 year period since 1972 is 7%. It has been as high as 9% and as low as 5%. But the longer the period you look at, the lower it gets. In the 43 years since 1972 the return is 6%. The larger point is that one single number rarely tells the whole story.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 4:27 pm
by KevinW
Kudos!

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 7:31 pm
by jacob
Tyler9000 wrote: The point of the Funnel chart is to show how looking at a single CAGR number for the "long term" can sometimes be deceptive depending on the period you look at.
This also illustrates that the long-term return is independent of the initial strategy and closer to economic growth rate + leverage.---A point I made in the ERE book if I might add :geek:

Another observation is that the "holy wars" are often influenced by anecdotal/autobiographical/fashionable observations of 5-30 year periods. This probably explains 90%+ of all opinionated commentary of the supposed "best" strategy.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 8:26 pm
by pooablo
Those charts look familiar! I saw something like that on the Crawling Road blog. Did you share your charts there too?

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 9:21 pm
by Tyler9000
pooablo wrote:Those charts look familiar! I saw something like that on the Crawling Road blog. Did you share your charts there too?
Yep! Same Tyler. :D

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2015 10:31 pm
by Tyler9000
jacob wrote: This also illustrates that the long-term return is independent of the initial strategy and closer to economic growth rate + leverage.---A point I made in the ERE book if I might add :geek:
I'm not convinced it's totally independent, but I agree that in the investment world a lot of energy is spent constantly reshuffling the deck chairs for minimum wind resistance rather than watching the sail.
jacob wrote: Another observation is that the "holy wars" are often influenced by anecdotal/autobiographical/fashionable observations of 5-30 year periods.
I've definitely found this to be true.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:13 pm
by almostthere
Congratulations on the write up with the "Reformed Broker"!
http://thereformedbroker.com/2015/08/04 ... n-the-web/

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:51 pm
by Tyler9000
Thanks! The review was completely unsolicited and blew me away. I talked to Josh Brown briefly, and he was extremely friendly and insightful. I can't say enough good things about the whole experience.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2015 12:33 pm
by jennypenny
The website looks great. DH played around with the calculator for a while. He liked it a lot more than firecalc.

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:23 pm
by jennypenny
I like the rewrite. And I really like "commentary" instead of "blog."

Re: Portfolio Charts

Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2015 6:52 pm
by Tyler9000
Thanks, JP. It's always good to have another set of eyes on things. Anything I can do to make things simpler and easier to understand without watering things down is a great idea. I believe there's far too little of that kind of thing in finance.

I sorta like "commentary" as well. It carries more meaning. "Blog" is a really weird word when you think about it.