Just a quick tip strawpeople - when adding to a forum post, you have two options -
- If you click on the blue "Add New Post" button, your post will appear as a new post at the top of the forum thread, or
- If you scroll down to the last post, or to the post you want to add to or comment on and click on the "Reply" button, your post will appear below that post.
It's up to you, but my own personal preference is to use the "Reply" button in threads like this one because my post will then get added to the bottom of the thread and it keeps the thread in date-and-time-of-post (chronological) order, so is easier to follow for anybody reading through the posts.
That said, I've used the "Add New Post" button this time to get this message up the top of the thread. Usually I will use the "Reply" button instead.
Also, not sure if this is still the case, but I have found previously that if I delete a post of mine, any replies to my post also disappear. That may not still be the case, but it was at some point last year, so something to keep in mind. You can also always edit posts that you have previously written if you later find typos. Straws and Valuations can also be edited but you lose the "Like Count" when you do - it resets to zero every time you edit - but that doesn't happen with forum posts - the Like Count stays unchanged when you edit a forum post. As I have said previously, I don't obsess about "Likes", but they tell me if content I'm creating is being read by people who find it helpful / useful / entertaining / thought-provoking / etc., or if I'm wasting my time writing about something that nobody is interested in.
Anyway, I'll add my own personal 2025 Summary here some time over the weekend after I've updated Sharesight with my December SMSF trades - all my other trades (in my other portfolios) get automatically updated in Sharesight, but I have to manually update my CBUS Self Managed (SMSF) portfolio trades (I use a spreadsheet which I upload to Sharesight) - and I'll then get Sharesight to generate a performance report on all of my real money portfolios combined into one. I know I had a good year - we'll see just how good. I'll post a short summary of that report here over the weekend using the "Reply" button at the bottom of this forum thread so that my post goes to the bottom of the thread.
Happy New Year !
Happy trails @DrPete , sounds like a cracker of a trip!
Prompted me to look at the local currency there:
It makes it look like your purchasing power as an Aussie would have gone through the roof, but sadly (especially for the locals) most of that is offset by some insane levels of inflation. Would be interesting to hear your experience of what the mood is like over there.
My portfolio is down 5% over the past year, which seems counter intuitive given I am heavily skewed to the tech sector, and my holdings include all 3 hyperscalers and Nvdia. By contrast in the previous two years I was up 35% and 44% with substantially the same companies in my portfolio. AI has caused a huge amount of uncertainty, in my view, and as we know markets hate uncertainty. The picks and shovels plays have done fine, but any companies moving up the value chain to apply AI in their own product offerings seem to be very out of favour. Among my US companies, Adobe has taken a 20% hit to its share price, despite business fundamentals remaining very solid. The Trade Desk has fared even worse, down 68%, which is totally unwarranted based on its performance this year and management guidance for next year.
On the ASX my underperformers have been CSL, WTC and - unbelievably - TNE. Even poor old PNV is down 40% despite continued sales growth and a rosy future.
In a nutshell I think I have largely been a victim of multiple compression this year. My companies have continued to grow and I haven't had any thesis breaking moments, so I will continue to keep the faith. Although the annual growth in my portfolio value has fallen a few percentage points, it is still at 17%, across a 12 year period, which is quite enough for me to sleep soundly at night.
Better than I ever have before:
But that is because of two things.
- Ignoring the noise, this community allowed to gain not just the knowledge that i needed to be a good Investor, but the understanding to not react to every noise.
- Luck, plain and simple I was lucky in my opinion.
Droneshield did ALL the lifting, I saw a company that I thought had potential, purchased it at what i thought was a good price, positioning myself for the long-term and it ran, and ran. I was able to Ignore the noise, until i could no longer Ignore the crazy price and sold out.
That would not have been possible without learning from you all.
Audinate and Vection Technolgies worst performing.
All up Sharesight shows a total return of 137.92%
Can't Imagine I will ever get that again, so like I said "Lucky"
Happy new year, fellow Straw-folk. This might appear a strange thread at first but hear me out.
I am doing my standard comparison (calendar year) of my existing portfolios vs the index – like many other members do too, no doubt. I figured sharing this here annually might be worthwhile. This is not designed to be a humble brag (heck, sometimes it will be the opposite i.e. having a shocker of a year) – but more a practice to keep myself honest and transparent while also forcing myself to think about what has performed well and what hasn’t, and why. I encourage you all to play too, good or bad. However, don't be shy! Investing is about learning, making mistakes, critically considering those mistakes and playing a long-term game. There will be good years and bad years, but hopefully we improve as we mature as investors. My year last year for instance was a poor one.
My intention here is mainly to encourage critical analysis and information diversity, with a focus on performance and investment lessons. Sure, many portfolios on Strawman are likely to provide an accurate representation of member holdings/performance, but I think the real value is being forced to think about the key drivers behind performance (good or bad).
So for me personally, I run two portfolios outside of a standard index tracker – my core portfolio and my super. Within those, I will include performance (vs index), best performing stock and worst performing stock, with a brief synopsis on key suspected driver/s of price. For fun, I will also include my highest prediction pick for the coming year (or industry/thematic, whatever floats your boat if you want to play along).
For ease, I will compare against the ASX 300 (XKO) and returns will include dividends.
Core portfolio
- Performance: 36.5% total return vs the index performance of 7.21%
- Best performer: Cogstate (CGS) 120% return
- Why? Strong reporting across the board, with material increases to revenue, gross profit, margins and NPAT. Outlook appears favourable.
- Worst performer: Novonix (NVX) -41.5%
- Why? A slow year of progress and the cancellation of a key contract, while dilution was heavy. There was some hype throughout the year with the share price doubling, before halving and then some. Grey clouds forming in relation to their ability to execute (produce actual satisfactory product for customers). The thesis is Novonix will have first mover advantage, be a leader in the US and will be supported by govt. If Panasonic walk away (a clear sign that they can’t produce consistent, high-quality anode at scale) my thesis is busted.
Super portfolio
- Performance: 15.94% total return vs the index performance of 7.21%
- Best performer: PLS Group aka Pilbara Minerals (PLS) 90.95% return
- Why? In short, lithium prices have rebounded from their lows; broader market expectations now suggest demand may exceed supply; increase in battery energy storage systems demand; boosted production and cut costs. Special mention to management who played the down cycle sensationally, keeping excess money on hand, increasing production, cutting costs and waiting for a price rebound without doing anything stupid.
- Worst performer: Novonix (NVX) -41.5%
- Why? As above (doh!)
Highest prediction pick for the year ahead remains Smart Parking (refer to the company page for my thesis/thoughts) – but I am also increasingly bullish on coal, particularly thermal coal, with my play here being New Hope (NHC).
As mentioned above for transparency, while I am content with 2025 returns, my 2024 was an absolute stinker. The peaks and troughs of investing and all the lessons/learning that comes with it.
Keen to hear how other members fared this year and any investing lessons from the year.
OK, here's how I did with my real money portfolios in 2025:
That's based on combining my 4 real money portfolios into one, something Sharesight allows. The size of each block (square or rectangle) represents the weighting to that company or fund based on Wednesday 31st December's closing share prices, so the larger the block, the bigger my position is. My losers there are all smaller positions held in my speculative portfolio and it's early days with those ones.
The green and red colours represent gains (green) and losses (red) - with the darker red being the larger % losses and the darker green being the larger % gains. Lighter colours represent lower % returns. The percentages stated either beside or under each ticker code are the TSRs (Total Shareholder Returns) those positions generated for me over calendar 2025.
My Total Return (TSR%) for that lot over Calendar 2025 was +55.54% as shown in the top left corner.
Those above are all the positions that remained open on December 31st. Below are the companies that I no longer hold but did hold at one or more point(s) in 2025:
Spartan (SPR) was acquired by Ramelius (RMS) for cash. The companies with a ">" in front of the ticker code were held in 2 of my portfolios during the year. I only created my Speccy Portfolio (SPF) in May, so prior to May I did hold some speculative companies (like NMG & EGL) in my Income Portfolio (IPF), because I can only hold ASX300 companies in my CBUS SMSF.
My top 7 wealth winners for calendar 2025 were:
That's in dollar terms, not percentages, the best 7 in percentage terms are listed below, however the list above is more important because those companies listed above contributed the most in dollar terms to my portfolio balances increasing. The difference between the two lists is due to weightings. For example, LYL "only" provided me with a +37.08% TSR for the year, so doesn't make the list below, however the dollar contribution of that +37.08% from LYL was greater than the +135.88% gain I got from EVN because my LYL position across the 2 portfolios I hold it in (my IPF and our Kids' PF which only holds one company, LYL) was much larger than the EVN position in my SMSF.
The percentage returns list directly above includes MEK (Meeka Metals) however because MEK was a smaller position for me that I held in my Speccy Portfolio, it doesn't make the "Top 7 Wealth Winners" list that shows the seven best dollar returns. MEK is replaced in that list by LYL which provided the best dollar returns of all of my positions in 2025.
My worst performer was Audinate (AD8) which I sold out of during the year, and it was out by itself (in a class of its own) with a -40.80% (negative) TSR. I booked a $35K loss for the year on AD8, and while there were a few others that I also lost money on, all of those losses - other than AD8 - were less than $10K, so not particularly material. And all but 3 of those were losses of less than $3K, so I did manage to cut my losses early, except for AD8 which I did hold onto for longer than I should have. Lesson learned. The market isn't always wrong.
Turning back to the largest 7 drivers of my +55.54% TSR for 2025, 5 of them are gold producers (GMD, RMS, EVN, NST & CMM) and the other two (LYL and GNG) are E&C companies who specialise in the engineering and construction of gold processing facilities (gold mills). So there was a strong gold price tailwind behind all 7 of those companies.
I don't currently hold any of the large global gold royalty companies, but I reckon those royalty-co's might do very well in 2026 if the gold price holds up or increases further. I'm tipping it increases further, but I'd also be happy enough with some sideways movement during the year or a small drop. Central Bank buying of gold shows no sign of losing steam, so that's a major tailwind that the gold price continues to have. China is increasing the percentage of gold they hold in their reserves every month as they progressively reduce their US Dollar exposure, so that's the main one I'm watching on Gold.Org/GoldHub.
And while I am clearly overweight gold producing companies across my portfolios, my largest two exposures are to E&C companies (LYL and GNG) and my 5th largest exposure is to Dalrymple Bay Infrastructure (DBI) who own a Queensland Coal Export Terminal and associated shiploading infrastructure. I also hold a mining services company (NWH) and ARB Corporation (ARB) so it's not ALL gold.
2024 was my best year so far - up until that point - and I retired from paid employment in April 2024, so spent most of 2024 as a full-time investor. In 2025 I beat my record 2024 results - and I spent all of 2025 as a self-funded retiree; first full year of that, so I'm happy with how that's working out so far. However I have to be careful not to confuse luck with skill.
I had what I believed to be a decent thesis on why the gold price would improve over 2025 and it beat my own expectations, so I think my 2025 result was a mix of skill and luck, and it's always hard to determine how much luck actually did play a part, but it was significant.
I do not expect that 2026 will be similar. I do expect the gold price to rise further but almost certainly not at the same pace that we saw in 2025. The other major factor is that gold producing companies received a long-overdue positive re-rating during 2025, and that's done and dusted now, so further gains are going to be driven more by further gold price rises plus individual company performances (higher production and lower costs) as well as M&A.
There has been a lot of upside in 2025 from many gold producers going from being largely ignored to now being in demand, and the large share price gains that come with that.
2026 won't be so easy.
But that's the challenge; I have to remain nimble and act quick when new opportunities present. Good fun! And I have to expect to have some significant losses as well - which is not as much fun but is unavoidable if you're chasing decent returns rather than mediocre ones.
AD8 was my only significant loser/loss in 2025, but my expectations for 2026 are realistic - I expect lower returns and more losers - but I still intend to beat the ASX200, ASX300 and All Ords Indices. I may not achieve that, but if that's not my objective I might as well just invest in ETFs.
P.S. I only invest in ASX listed companies, and managed funds within CBUS Self Managed (my SMSF); All of my 2025 exposures are shown above in the tables, so I do not have any direct overseas-listed-company exposure at this point in time, and I didn't have any during 2025 either.
I've noticed that there is a variance in my post last night between the % returns in the green/red block map vs the ones in the screenshots of the exported .pdf files of that report in both percentages and dollar returns. After about an hour of digging today I discovered that it is due to a bug in Sharesight when you export reports on combined portfolios to a file (.pdf or spreadsheet). I have alerted them to the bug however I was only able to do that through their chatbot which kept parroting the same speil about how the system works - and it does work UNTIL you go to export the report into a file and then the bug kicks in. I'll get onto them tomorrow as it's Monday and they should have somebody in the office.
The bug is this: When you export a performance report to a file and that performance report is for combined portfolios, everything works EXCEPT where a company (position) is held in multiple portfolios - and in that case the export function only calculates the return on the first (usually the largest) position you hold in that company and ignores positions held in a second, third, or any other portfolio.
This does not happen when Sharesight generates the performance report, it works fine at that point with all positions combined and a ">" character indicating that the position is held across multiple portfolios and if you click on that ">" symbol it breaks down the individual positions in that company on separate lines. The problem only occurs when you export that report to a file, and I had done that before using trimmed screenshots of that report to list my best performers. As a result, wherever I had held a company in more than one of my real money portfolios during calendar 2025, the exported report changed the % and the dollar calculations. This affected the results for LYL, GMD & MEK. Here's what I mean - firstly, this block map is correct:
It is correct because I screenshotted that from the report rather than from the exported .pdf file.
However the following are incorrect because they were screenshotted from the faulty exported .pdf file:
Above = top 7 based on performance in percentages (incorrect % for GMD & MEK). Below = top 7 based on performance in dollars.
The order (above) is also incorrect. Below is the correct data taken instead directly from the report rather than from the exported file:
Above = performance based on dollars (top 9, NRH Holdings - NWH - was #10). Below = performance based on percentage gains (top 10). [these two tables - above and below - are correct]
We can see that all of those percentages from the final column above now align correctly with the percentages on the green/red block map (below):
LYL was my 14th best performer in percentage terms in 2025, but was my 2nd best performer in dollar terms because LYL is my largest position and significantly larger than most other positions. Percentage returns ignore position sizes, but position sizes do matter, which is why the dollar returns list is more important.
So everything I said in my post last night in this thread is correct except that LYL was my second best performer in dollar terms (after GMD), not my best performer. The reason for that mistake was that Sharesight ignored the gains I had made on GMD in my income portfolio (IPF) during 2025 and only looked at the gains I had made on GMD in my SMSF, and it only made that mistake when it exported that report to a .pdf file. I then assumed that exported file was correct and it wasn't because of that Sharesight system bug which I've reported to them and will report to them again tomorrow when they have some humans in the office.
Also two of the percentage returns that I had highlighted with a green squircle last night were wrong - for GMD and MEK - and did not align with the correct percentages in the green/red block map. I still had a +55.54% gain in 2025 from both capital gains and dividends, and that was, as I said last night, due to a combination of skill and luck, with luck playing a significant part in the result.
Also, for those who may not be aware, Sharesight has a particular way that they calculate percentage returns. For all periods over 12 months they automatically annualise the results, so the percentages for any period over 12 months are always p.a. (per annum) percentages. Not an issue here as this report is for exactly 12 months.
However they also calculates percentage returns using a dollar-weighted return (DWR) methodology, also known as a money-weighted approach. This method measures investment performance by considering both the size and timing of cash flows. I believe that's also the method that Strawman.com uses to calculate performance here.
The other widely used approach in performance measurement is the Time Weighted Return (TWR). In this method the effect of cash inflows and outflows is removed from the calculation. This is commonly used when evaluating fund manager performance. The reasoning behind this approach is that fund managers don’t control when money flows into and out of their fund — investors control that — so it is not reasonable to include that effect when evaluating the manager. Investors, however can control the timing of when they put money in or out of the portfolio. For this reason it is widely agreed that a dollar-weighted return is the most appropriate means of measuring performance from a private investor’s point of view.
Source: https://help.sharesight.com/au/performance_calculation_method/
In simple terms, we need to remember that dollar-weighted return (DWR), which is equivalent to Internal Rate of Return (IRR), is an annualised figure by default, even if the holding period is less than 12 months. The DWR calculation determines a constant rate of return per period that equates the present value of all cash flows (initial investment, contributions, withdrawals, and ending value) to zero.
If you are generating one of these reports in Sharesight for either a single portfolio or combined portfolios, you will get different returns for your currently held positions (or positions held at the end of the reporting period you choose) when you toggle "Include Closed Positions" on and off. For my report, I have included all closed positions.
If I toggle that to "off" I get higher percentage returns for most of the companies I currently hold but a lower total return, 33.17% instead of 55.54%. Anyway, including closed positions is the right way to go because otherwise all of the gains or losses made on positions that were fully exited during the year would be ignored, and they did all contribute to the portfolio value movement over the full year so they should all be included.
But this last bit above is just to point out that there are a number of ways of calculating portfolio returns over a defined period, and I'm using the default Sharesight method which is either exactly the same or very similar to what Strawman.com uses here. Sharesight does allow us to choose compound returns instead of simple returns (explained here) but I have chosen simple returns (not compound returns) because the values of listed company positions do not move in the same measured way over time that a term deposit value moves, so compound returns are suitable for investments like term deposits that appreciate in a straight line or a dependable curve, not so much for sharemarket investments which are much more volatile.
Also, because this report of mine is for exactly 12 months, the compound return numbers would be no different than the simple return numbers, that only changes when you go beyond 12 months.
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Just thought I'd better clear that up - why two of my percentage returns (for GMD & MEK) were wrong last night in parts of my post and that LYL was my second best performing position across 2025 in dollar terms, not my best performer. GMD (Genesis Minerals) beat LYL (Lycopodium) for the top spot (in dollar terms). The green/red block map was always correct and the correct tables are the final two in this post above - above the block map above. The green/red block map shows percentage returns for positions that were still open on December 31st only. The positions that were closed prior to December 31st are shown in a table in my first post, and that also shows percentage returns - which are all correct. It was only the "Top 7 Performers" tables (in percentages and dollars) in last night's post by me that were not right due to that Sharesight bug.
2025.... an interesting year. Pivotal for me personally as now I am slowly starting to see the compounding buildup in all its glory. Thanks Uncle Warren.
Thanks for prompting the exercise team. Whilst it was a good year with no complaints whatsoever, its an opportunity to reflect and improve.
Wishing you all a better 2026!
Just a final follow up on my last post (above) in this thread.
I received a reply this morning from Roshan at Sharesight:
Thank you for the information, John. If you select the 'combine by holding' option before exporting the report in pdf file as highlighted below, the exported file will display a single line for holdings that are common across multiple portfolios.
Could you please check on this?
Regards,
Roshan
--- --- ---
I replied:
Yes Roshan, that works, thank you. I have never noticed that box before - has it been recently added?
Regards,
John.
--- --- ---
This afternoon Roshan replied:
Thanks for confirming, John. Yes, this feature was recently added on the performance report.
Best Regards,
Roshan
Sharesight.
--- --- ---
So it seems they fixed it because of my query because I'd never seen that box before today, not sure if anyone else had noticed it when exporting a combined portfolio performance report to a .pdf?
Main thing is that I/we can now create a printable .pdf of a combined portfolio performance report in the same format as the performance report that is generated by Sharesight on their website.
By the way, I noticed another forum here discussing an alternative product to Sharesight - I haven't used that one so can't add anything useful there - I have only used Sharesight and I am paying the higher annual amount for the Pro version because of the number of portfolios that I track. It is good, but there are a few things that bug me now and then, however as this exchange shows, the staff are responsive to queries and feedback and it looks to me that they have added a new feature as a result of my feedback/query. So I can't fault them in that regard. It certainly does make report generation very easy as long as you're happy with the way they calculate returns (already discussed). I don't think I'd change even if there was a slightly cheaper alternative. Sharesight is good enough; does the job.