2023 Summary

Positions as of the start of 2024

It can be trivial in a portfolio context to reflect on a calendar year of performance. I answer to no clients, so am more concerned with inception returns; a better indicator of whether or not spending all this time researching companies is worth my time. That said, at this age, I find immense value in the practice of research as a means to help me learn and understand the world better.

I count my inception as of August 8th, 2018. That was the date I created a new portfolio after spending years going through the initiation process so many new investors face; losing money in ShitCos, throwing darts at a board, and pretending to myself I had it all figured out. In those first three years (2018 as a partial year) I returned 16.0%, 42.0%, and 34.2%. The following two years made a pretty sizeable dent in my aspirations of beating the market with sequential down years. Whatever 2023 was happened, and I ended up being +47.5% for the year. Sounds great, but the reality is that the cumulative 5…