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