CapitalTime

Articles on investing and capital management, with a quantitative focus.


#growth - My portfolio of individual growth stocks

Growth Portfolio Annual Update

2023-06-25


These are not stock recommendations; I’m just sharing my stock portfolio. I don’t think picking individual stocks is worthwhile, but I enjoy the process and will run this portfolio for a few years.

My “Growth” stock portfolio continues to outperform the Canadian benchmark. I screen for profitability and price momentum, so it’s probably not correct to use the term “Growth”. My current stocks are:

Stock Symbol Company Sector
DOL Consumer
L Consumer
TRI Professional
WCN Industrial
CP Transport
CSU Technology
IFC Financials
FFH Financials
TECK.B Commodities

The positions are roughly equal weight, but may vary because I try to minimize trades. I calculate performance based on the actual portfolio and trade fill prices, or bid/ask midpoints when positions are held through to the next period. Trading fees are ignored.

Performance

The lifetime CAGR (compound annual growth rate) since inception is 9.5%, compared to the benchmark XIC at 7.0%. This outperformance over 6.5 years looks promising, but it may also just be random luck.

Start End Growth XIC
2016-12-28 2017-06-19 15.0% 0.7%
2017-06-19 2017-12-27 2.6% 7.2%
2017-12-27 2018-06-18 4.9% 2.5%
2018-06-18 2018-12-17 -11.6% -10.3%
2018-12-17 2019-06-19 20.1% 16.1%
2019-06-19 2019-12-27 6.3% 5.5%
2019-12-27 2020-06-08 -2.1% -5.9%
2020-06-08 2021-06-11 25.7% 29.8%
2021-06-11 2022-06-30 -6.3% -3.4%
2022-06-30 2023-06-21 12.1% 7.8%
Lifetime CAGR 6.5 yrs 9.5% 7.0%

Am I beating the index?

I’m suspicious about the first time period in the table, because early in my stock-picking, I had poor diversification and more concentrated positions. A lucky fluke in a concentrated portfolio might explain the unusual outperformance at the start.

This chart shows cumulative portfolio return compared to XIC, starting at 2017-06-19 to skip the first period. It looks like I’m more or less tracking the index!

If this kind of “index tracking” continues, there really is no point to picking individual stocks.

— Jem Berkes