Bench mark LASER

[laser]

I have got a portfolio of shares as an investment. What bench mark do you use ? I have mainly top 40 shares and use coronation top 20 as a kind of bench mark. The following shares I own are: AGL,AMS,APN,ARI,BIL,BVT,EXX,GND,INP,KIO,MTN,NHM,NPN,RDF,REM,SAB,SCL, SOL,SPP. I sold BAT too early and bought BIL,NPN,APN all 3 are doing fine. However,I am concerned about AMS,INP,NHM,SCL. Please give me some feed back on above. Thank you in advance for your help and support. I am retired and recently switched over to on line share trading.

[Rams]

if your shares are mainly JSE Top 40, then use the TOP 40 index as comparison

[#3]

You are over diversified. Buy an index tracker like satrix40 and then select no more than 6/7 stocks for alpha.

[Rams]

yes, 22 shares...may be dificult to keep track of all of them...if you not outperforming the JSE (all share/top 40), then index fund( like satrix 40) probably better

[#5]

come on guys, over diversified? And your answer to his overdiversification is to buy Satrix - which is even more diversified?

[Rams]

well if he is underperforming the index, just buy the index and sleep easy...if he is outperforming, the well and good? he needs a benchmark, i got a feeling he has not benchmarked against the index

[Franksays]

I agree - use the top40 as bench. I use a program - Abacus Portfolio Performance Calculater to track my porfolios performance. http://download.cnet.com/Abacus-Portfolio-Performance-Calculator/3000-2066_4-10817992.html I saw someone put the link up on Tickertalk and cant remember who to credit with it, but its been a great help.

[#8]

An interesting note, I did a calc this month on the All share to figure out what the CAGR of the All share is -
Since 1985 it always seems to average at about 13% - in other words one's portfolio needs to grow by at least 13% per year, over any 3-5 year period as a good benchmark. If you cant get this right, put your money in Satrix top40 and leave it.

[#9]

Laser, looking at your portfolio, I would benchmark against a couple of indices. Platinum for your plat miners (AMS, NHM), mining index for Anglo, Exx, Bil, etc - diversified industrials for MTN, GND, BVT, etc. As for your speculative stocks (like SCL), some sort of smallcap index would suffice. I would then rate the shares based on their performance in their sector and ditch the underperformers, unless you have a real reason to believe in a turnaround soon (like GND for example - still some downside, but shipping has to turn soon). As for the viability of the sector on the whole - well that is a function of your views (me for instance, I don't believe in the platinum sector at all, and I am a great believer in small and mid-caps).

[MarkD]

I use the Satrix40 as my benchmark. I currently have 12 shares in my potfolio and there are a couple of others I want to add, because they seem like good investments to me. I've found alot of growth outside of the top40 and in the midcaps, as well as some good dividend returns. I try to balance my selections between income and growth. I have outperformed the Satrix40 over the last 18 months, but not by a huge margin. So there is some room for improvement i guess! There always is.

[#11]

I tend to use Mar - Feb to compare year on year, this year I love it because of the uprisings in Egypt happened end of Feb where the prices plummeted for that week. so now it looks like I nearly had 50% growth for the year whereas comparing the normal value it shows a lot less :)))