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
| Portfolio |
Last Updated |
Launch Date |
Tracking Tool |
Port. IRR |
VTSMX IRR |
Diff |
IR |
| AA-Mosaic |
4/30/2009 |
7/21/1999 |
Captool |
-1.08% |
-3.53% |
2.5% |
0.05 |
| AA-Mosaic |
5/29/2009 |
12/26/2007 |
TLH SS |
-16.4% |
-27.4% |
11.0% |
*** |
| Mosaic2 |
4/30/2009 |
7/19/1999 |
Captool |
1.7% |
-3.74% |
5.4% |
0.15 |
| Mosaic2 |
5/29/2009 |
6/02/2008 |
TLH SS |
-13.0% |
-22.9% |
9.9% |
*** |
| Passive Port. |
4/30/2009 |
12/01/2000 |
Captool |
0.97% |
-3.53% |
4.5% |
0.67 |
| Passive Port. |
5/29/2009 |
02/01/2000 |
TLH SS |
1.2% |
-1.7% |
2.9% |
*** |
| Jane |
4/30/2009 |
2/14/1997 |
Captool |
3.99% |
-3.18% |
7.2% |
0.38 |
| Jane |
5/29/2009 |
6/30/2008 |
TLH SS |
-5.9% |
-17.3% |
11.4% |
*** |
| Gauss |
4/30/2009 |
2/19/1997 |
Captool |
-1.03% |
-3.18% |
2.2% |
0.01 |
| Gauss |
5/29/2009 |
11/01/2008 |
TLH SS |
25.1% |
7.3% |
17.8% |
*** |
| Scrappy |
4/30/2009 |
8/14/2008 |
Captool |
-12.89% |
-42.52% |
29.6% |
*** |
| Scrappy |
5/29/2009 |
8/14/2008 |
TLH SS |
-6.6% |
-31.9% |
25.3% |
*** |
| Projects |
4/30/2009 |
12/01/2000 |
Captool |
4.27% |
-4.68% |
8.9% |
1.35 |
| 1 |
4/30/2009 |
6/18/1999 |
Captool |
1.41% |
-3.25% |
4.7% |
0.26 |
| 2 |
4/30/2009 |
6/18/1999 |
Captool |
1.65% |
-3.25% |
4.9% |
0.67 |
| 3 |
4/30/2009 |
3/13/2008 |
Captool |
-14.1% |
-29.67% |
15.6% |
*** |
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.
The screen shot below is an analysis of the AAII ETF Portfolio. As readers can see, this is a high risk portfolio and one I would not recommend for the average investor. While the projected 13.5% return is to be applauded, this portfolio carries a projected standard deviation of 25.7% a very high value – particularly when we are trying to keep the SD value under 15%.
Another drawback of this portfolio is the Diversification Metric (DM) value of 20%. That is one-half of the diversification goal we seek when developing an asset allocation for a portfolio.
Note: Some of these ETFs do not have a three-year record. This required me to run the analysis using 25 months of data so as to not run into calculation (short record) problems. This is not ideal and may have compounded the high SD problem.
It is possible to create solid portfolios with acceptable returns while pulling down the risk and increasing the diversification of the portfolio. Such portfolios are discussed and in operation over on the Premium Content side of the blog.
Lowell Herr
Photograph:
