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VIRTUAL DAN

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Monthly Archives: February 2016

VR and Group Entertainment

I was watching this Vine video of a Virtual Reality (VR) rollercoaster experience complete with mechanical enhancements:

 

Maybe VR will revitalize the movie and themepark entertainment experience, rather than keep people in their own homes for VR entertainment?

The addition of physical movement would be hard to replicate at home, and some venue featuring these experiences would be great group entertainment.   As to how to invest for this, that remains a question.  Will theaters adopt this new business model, or will new disruptive companies rise to replace theaters (think back to how newspapers adapted to the internet, and blockbuster adapted to streaming).

So don’t necessarily think VR will kill the public entertainment industry – maybe we all won’t be holed up in our house with goggles on.   This may be a trend to keep an eye on.

February 25, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

An alternative view of Russia and the CIA

A surprising frank interview with Ray McGovern – an ex CIA Analyst who appears to be spilling the beans on the ‘Deep State’ running American foreign policy:

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/07/intelligent_people_know_that_the_empire_is_on_the_downhill_a_veteran_cia_agent_spills_the_goods_on_the_deep_state_and_our_foreign_policy_nightmares/

The first half of this article is marginally interesting but provides some historical perspective – but the 2nd half picks up speed when discussing Ukraine, Syria and the ‘Deep State’.

Looking at Ray McGovern’s bio on Wikipedia shows that he was “a CIA analyst for 27 years (1963 to 1990), “routinely presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House” and “where he was responsible for the analysis of Soviet policy in Vietnam”.

He is clearly a student of Russian history, and maybe he could be biased towards the Russian point of view (And the interview took place while he was attending a global political conference sponsored by RT (Russia Today).

Having said that – even if the truth about American foreign policy is ‘somewhere in the middle’ of his version and the Russia/Putin perception propagated by American media, its a pretty scary revelation about how far out of control the CIA is.

This is perhaps the most damning article I have seen on the CIA from a pseudo – main-stream news source (Salon is rated the 38th most popular News Entity in January 2015 by unique visits).   If only more news sites would expose this kind of information.

PS.  the article references the leaked discussion between Victoria Nuland and Geoff Pyatt regarding the American strategy in the Ukrainian coup – this article has the transcript and analysis of the call providing more great insight into how foreign policy works.

February 20, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

Historical Portfolio Return

I have always been diligent about looking at past performance of mutual funds prior to investing, and consider it to be one factor when comparing mutual funds.  However a recent improvement I made to  the VFS Daily Investment contest caused me to look at historical performance in a different light.

Starting in 2016, I am providing a prize for the portfolio with the best 3 year cumulative return.   The purpose was to reward ‘long-term’ excellence, and assumed the top portfolios would be pretty consistent.  However, I was surprised when I saw the results for 01/31/16 – the rankings for the top 10 portfolios changed dramatically:

One Month Change

 

So this caused me to immediately assume my calculations were messed up – so I did a little analysis of the top two portfolios:

 

Karen’s Portfolio Greg’s Portfolio
Month Monthly Return $100 invested
1/1/13 to 12/31/15
$100 invested
/1/13 to 1/31/16
Monthly Return $100 invested
1/1/13 to 12/31/15
$100 invested
2/1/13 to 1/31/16
1/31/2016 -3.89%  $  190.29 -7.54%  $  181.96
12/31/2015 2.34%  $  197.24  $  197.99 -4.98%  $  206.56  $  196.79
11/30/2015 2.61%  $  192.73  $  193.46 5.99%  $  217.37  $  207.09
10/31/2015 19.97%  $  187.82  $  188.54 9.37%  $  205.08  $  195.38
9/30/2015 -2.58%  $  156.55  $  157.15 -4.11%  $  187.51  $  178.64
8/31/2015 -2.06%  $  160.70  $  161.31 5.02%  $  195.56  $  186.31
7/31/2015 8.10%  $  164.07  $  164.70 0.67%  $  186.21  $  177.40
6/30/2015 -4.63%  $  151.78  $  152.36 -1.96%  $  184.98  $  176.23
5/31/2015 1.59%  $  159.16  $  159.76 4.19%  $  188.68  $  179.76
4/30/2015 1.75%  $  156.67  $  157.26 5.40%  $  181.09  $  172.53
3/31/2015 -2.02%  $  153.98  $  154.56 -0.89%  $  171.82  $  163.70
2/28/2015 7.40%  $  157.15  $  157.75 5.35%  $  173.36  $  165.16
1/31/2015 -1.26%  $  146.32  $  146.88 7.62%  $  164.55  $  156.77
12/31/2014 -3.65%  $  148.19  $  148.75 -2.65%  $  152.90  $  145.68
11/30/2014 2.77%  $  153.80  $  154.39 2.32%  $  157.06  $  149.64
10/31/2014 5.12%  $  149.65  $  150.22 0.23%  $  153.50  $  146.24
9/30/2014 -2.45%  $  142.36  $  142.90 -1.79%  $  153.15  $  145.91
8/31/2014 1.93%  $  145.94  $  146.49 4.60%  $  155.94  $  148.57
7/31/2014 1.37%  $  143.17  $  143.71 -1.79%  $  149.08  $  142.03
6/30/2014 0.65%  $  141.24  $  141.77 3.03%  $  151.80  $  144.62
5/31/2014 5.11%  $  140.32  $  140.85 6.09%  $  147.34  $  140.37
4/30/2014 -0.33%  $  133.50  $  134.01 -0.15%  $  138.87  $  132.31
3/31/2014 -0.98%  $  133.95  $  134.46 -3.44%  $  139.09  $  132.51
2/28/2014 6.70%  $  135.27  $  135.78 4.00%  $  144.04  $  137.23
1/31/2014 -2.99%  $  126.78  $  127.26 -1.80%  $  138.50  $  131.95
12/31/2013 2.63%  $  130.69  $  131.18 4.74%  $  141.04  $  134.37
11/30/2013 2.86%  $  127.34  $  127.82 3.31%  $  134.65  $  128.29
10/31/2013 9.14%  $  123.80  $  124.27 7.58%  $  130.34  $  124.18
9/30/2013 0.90%  $  113.43  $  113.86 5.08%  $  121.16  $  115.44
8/31/2013 -1.22%  $  112.42  $  112.84 -1.51%  $  115.31  $  109.86
7/31/2013 4.78%  $  113.81  $  114.24 9.06%  $  117.07  $  111.54
6/30/2013 -1.71%  $  108.61  $  109.02 0.24%  $  107.35  $  102.27
5/31/2013 1.48%  $  110.50  $  110.92 1.08%  $  107.09  $  102.02
4/30/2013 3.26%  $  108.89  $  109.30 1.44%  $  105.94  $  100.93
3/31/2013 2.90%  $  105.45  $  105.85 2.15%  $  104.44  $    99.50
2/28/2013 2.87%  $  102.48  $  102.87 -2.60%  $  102.23  $    97.40
1/31/2013 -0.38%  $    99.62 4.96%  $  104.96

 

And I found my explanation.  Using the approach of measuring return in terms of ‘$100 invested 3 years ago now is worth x’ does really magnify recent performance.  Note that even though Gregs portfolio was down 7.5% in January, it knocked $15 off his hypothetical investment.  So losses for the leaders are magnified as they hypothetically have more assets to lose.

The other important point is the starting point makes a big difference.  Greg’s portfolio for the period 2/1/13 – 01/31/16 got hurt, because he had a decent month in January (highlighted in green), which no longer counted. Removing the 4% gain from the first month knocked $10 off the 3 year return, further causing the large drop in Greg’s portfolio’s value.

So the moral to the story?  Be careful when looking at mutual fund past performance – as the time period you are looking at may make a big difference in how the performance is measured.  Or better yet – maybe mutual fund expense ratio is a much better indicator of future fund performance, since past performance is a pretty fluid measurement.

February 6, 2016 Dan Leave a comment

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