Investment Club Kudos

Today was our investment club meeting and we went over our results for 2009, which overall we were pleased with. The accounting program we use has some new "toys" available, including various charts that can be printed out, and so during lunch on Friday I took a look and was surprised with our overall results. Not that we're anywhere near that 14.9% a year compounded annual rate of return that we need to make for five years in a row in order to double our money. Nope. However, when compared to two important indexes, we haven't done so badly at all. Our club's results were weighed against the results of a bundle of stocks that mirror the holdings of the S&P 500 and the Wilshire 5000 Index. For the period 5/11/05 (the date we made our first purchase) to 1/15/10: Club total return: 9.52% Wilshire 5000 Index total return: 0.18% S&P 500 Index total return: -0.53% Compound annual return for period ending December 31: 1 Year (these results are skewed because of the great crash that occurred in the market 10/08 that bottomed out in 03/09; we had a nice rebound :)) Club: 53.01% Wilshire: 28.08% S&P 500: 25.71% 3 Year Club: 7.96% Wilshire: -3.58% S&P 500: -4.32% We are pleased with our job as stock pickers over the past 4.5 years, but think we can do better. The Great Recession has taught us that no matter how carefully we screen our companies, shit happens. We are now on the hunt for a couple of new investments, looking to diversify and move into totally new areas.