5 year 21% Compound rate of return in IRA

[DTEJD1997]

Hey all:

Just doing some accounting tonight.

I went into my IRA account, and figured out the compound rate of return. I started it in late 2007, but it took about a year or so to really get ramped up...

The compound annual rate of return is at least 21% for the past 5 years. Of course, this is not an exact measurement, as I put money in for a 3 year period...

HOWEVER, if you assume I put ALL the money in on day #1, and did not add anything to it, the account grew at an annual compound rate of 21%.

I was checking mutual funds, AND THEY STINK over 5 year periods. Highly rated ones have like 8% compound rates of return over a 5 year period.

I achieved my results MAINLY with nano-caps & small caps. I got a LOT of dividend paying stocks, I also did a bit of covered call writing...Some of the stocks, Amcon Distributing, SuperMicro Computers, Birmingham Bloomfield bank, Rurban Financial, Western Refining, Bebe, ARK restaurants, and some others. Not all of my trades were winners, but probably 85% were.

I did well, but I'm sure other "RealCenters" did even better. Anybody care to share their results?

[barrytrot]

I doubt anyone did better than that over the last 5 years. That is Warren Buffet at his height of his power levels

I did pretty well, but not in that league.

I'm not sure why you care about dividend paying stocks when your in the 21%+ range? Dividends pay less than 8% so I don't see how that helps you? Or is that simply your gauge of a "good company with true profit" or something?

[DTEJD1997]

barrytrot:

Dividends are not my PRIMARY motivation in investing, the capital gains are...

HOWEVER, they are VERY important to me.

On several of my positions, I've got/had dividend yields WELL in excess of 10%.

I should clarify that...The eventual dividend yield on that position BECAME well in excess of 10% after a few years.

I bought one stock that initially had NO dividend (they had in the past though). After 2 years, they started a dividend again. The yield was 7% at that point. After 2 more years, they more than doubled the dividend, so now my yield is about 16%. I very strongly suspect the dividend will be FURTHER increased this November.

Another way that dividends are VERY important to me is that there were many companies I own that declared "special dividends" in November/December 2012. One position paid a special dividend of almost 50%! They also have a "regular" dividend that equates to 12%.

Dividends also add up to significant amounts over an extended period of time..

Dividends also instill some amount of discipline in management. They know they've got to pay it OR face shareholder wrath.

And finally, dividends allow me to invest in other companies and further my diversification.