2024 Portfolio Review

Overall my main portfolio and the market in general (as usual represented by VOO, Vanguard's S&P 500 ETF) performed similarly in 2024 compared to 2023.  In 2024 VOO was up about 24.89% compared to 26.13% in 2023.  And I was up about 18.20% compared to 15.66%.  So the market did a little bit worse and I did a little bit better but still underperformed by about 6.69%.

Breaking things down a little I was about 46.88% invested in VOO, 26.15% in individual stocks, 18.01% in ETFs other than VOO and 8.97% in cash (that is Vanguard's Federal Money Market Fund,VMFXX).  VOO returned 24.89% of which 1.54% was income.  My individual stocks returned 15.98% of which 3.13% was income.  My other ETFs returned 10.19% of which 2.69% was income.  And all of the cash return, 5.23%, was income.  Adding this up produces a return of 18.15% of which about 2.49% is income.  This doesn't quite match the actual return of 18.20% perhaps because I have made some approximations including basically ignoring interest on the dividends received during the year.

My improved relative performance is primarily due to my individual stocks returning 15.98% compared to 5.44% in 2023.  So still lagging the market but by 8.91% instead of 20.69%.  

In June I transferred some cash into the account.  In October I sold my entire CVS position at about 67.5 taking a tax loss as I had come to believe retail drug stores were a bad business.  This was a good decision in the short run as by the end of the year CVS had fallen to about 44.  But it has since recovered nicely and is currently over 90 up about 38.24% so the long run verdict is still open.  Also in October I made some buys none of which have done especially well.  I replaced CVS with VHT, Vanguard's health industry ETF, which is currently down about 1.42%.  I bought PEP, Pepsi, sort of impulsively and it is down 14.5%.  Perhaps I should have given more consideration to the potential reduction in demand for their products due to  growing adoption of the new class of weight loss drugs.  I also again added to VIG and SCHD two dividend growth ETFs.  They have done okay (up 15.79% and 14.43%) lagging the market but beating cash.  These return figures are all price only and compare to 27.54% for VOO over the same time period.