No. of Recommendations: 10
I just updated a spreadsheet that I keep of the returns of mutual funds. It tracks the returns of 21 funds over a period of 29 to 37 years. Most of the funds are value funds, plus a number of growth funds and a few index funds. A plot of annualized returns for 1 to 37 year periods, ending in 2022, looks like a trumpet, with a wide range of 1-year returns and a very small range of 37-year returns. Here are some data. I included the return of BRK-A, but it is not included in the range. The returns are after fees, which average 1.0%.
Number of years included, S&P 500, low fund, high fund, range, BRK-A
1, -18.1%, -30.5%, 17.4%, 47.9 points, 3.3%
3, 7.7, -6.6, 26.0, 32.6, 12.0
5, 9.4, 3.5, 12.4, 8.9, 9.9
7, 11.5, 3.6, 11.8, 14.4, 13.4
10, 12.5, 5.4, 12.4, 7.0, 13.5
15, 8.8, 2.0, 9.1, 7.1, 9.5
20, 7.8, 4.4, 11.4, 7.0, 9.8
25, 7.6, 5.3, 10.0, 4.7, 9.8
30, 9.6, 8.2, 11.7, 3.5, 11.7
35, 10.5, 9.5, 12.1, 2.6, 14.2
37, 10.6, 9.1, 11.9, 2.8, 15.2
As you can see, the range of returns trumpets down from a 48 point range at 1 year to a 5 point range at 25 years and a 3 point range at 35 years. Of the value funds the best performing fund over 37 years is the Dodge & Cox Stock Fund (DODGX) at 11.7% versus 10.6% for the S&P. The highest of all 21 funds is Alger Spectra A (SPECX), with a 37-year return of 11.9%.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Allow me to make a few observations that may be more apparent in the chart and in the spreadsheet than in the table:
1. As seen in the table, the range of 1 to 3 year returns is very large, while the range of 25+ year returns is very small.
2. As a result, long term track records of 15+ years are more informative than short term track records.
3. For periods of 6 years to 25 years the returns of BRK-A stock and of Berkshire's equity portfolio (not shown in the table) are consistently at or very near the top of the range, outperforming the S&P 500 by about 2 percentage points.
4. For periods of 30 years or more BRK-A stock and Berkshire's equity portfolio outperform the next best fund by about 2 percentage points and outperform the S&P by about 4 percentage points.
Inferences for individual investors:
1. As Buffett has noted, investing in a low cost, S&P 500 index fund is not a bad choice.
2. For those of us who prefer to invest in individual stocks, hoping to outperform the S&P by 2 percentage points over 25 years is not unrealistic, although by no means certain. However we should be sure to track our performance accurately, as we may find that we are underperforming the S&P.
3. Portfolios of individual stocks may have smaller drawdowns than the S&P 500, although that needs to be proven for each portfolio.
Good luck to all of us.
