ITA Wealth Management

Telemann for Trumpet is my CD recommendation for this week. This CD features Stephen Burns playing Concerto in D Major #’s 1, 2, and 3 as well as Sonata in D Major and Suite in D Major.  There are classical music aficionados who consider Telemann a “light-weight” composer.  I happen to disagree, although he does not make my top five composers.  There are too many Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms types to choose from for Telemann to make the top list.

Below is a review I found on Amazon. One of my favorite sections of the CD is the Suite in D Major.  I’m sure anyone who enjoys trumpet music will find many enjoyable sections.

“This disc has some works that are often recorded and some that are uncommon. Burns plays them all with good sound. His orchestra is outstanding, especially the oboe and bassoon players. The one drawback in this recording is Burns’ rather unconventional ornamentation. This is not a major detraction from an otherwise outstanding performance, but upon first hearing it will strike the listener as odd. The sound he gets from his Scherzer piccolo trumpet is quite fine, and his playing is marvelously smooth on the opening of the famous Trumpet Concerto # 1. Highly recommended.”

Lowell Herr

Photograph:  My grandson wanted to share his frozen peas with a “Stellar’s Jay.”

The data table below contains portfolio performance information for ten different portfolios.  A number of portfolios are tracked using two different programs.  Captool is a commercial program no longer supported by the developers as their software is now geared toward investment houses rather than the small investor.  I still have an old copy I keep running and Captool is the program I use to calculate the Information Ratio (IR).

TLH is the Excel spreadsheet and it stands for Thomas/Lalla/Herr.  Jim Thomas is the developer of the backbone of this spreadsheet.  Bakul Lalla and I added additional features to the spreadsheet over the years we have been using the TLH SS.  Note the different starting dates.  The older dates were periods when these portfolios were populated primarily with stocks.  The more recent dates are for the periods when a shift was made to ETFs.  The exception is the Passive Portfolio (PP) as it has almost always been constructed entirely of ETFs.

Take special note of the Diff column as this is the percentage difference between the Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for the portfolio and the IRR for the VTSMX benchmark.  Every portfolio is currently performing better than the benchmark.

The purpose of this data table is to show investors that through portfolio diversification, attention to asset allocation, and the use of index funds, one can beat a broad market index fund.  While the absolute values are still miserable, the relative performance with respect to the benchmark is quite remarkable.

Over the next ten days I will be updating all these portfolios and matching my records with the broker statements.  Premium readers will have access to all the transactions for six of the ten portfolios.

Historical Portfolio Data: May 29, 2009

Lowell Herr

PS:  As stated frequently, the portfolios in the data table belong to a variety of individuals and organizations.

Expect to see fewer posts over the next week as I plan to take a break for a few days.

Premium subscription available for $6.99 per month.  The spreadsheets for six of the ten portfolios is available to Premium subscribers.