Stock Gurus’ Performance this Year

Guru Focus is yet another website that I monitor.  It shows portfolio holdings and recent actions by world’s most known and respected investors, such as Warren Buffett and George Soros.  The scoreboard section of the site shows gurus’ actual performance for various time intervals.  So how did they fare this year?

Out of 60 managers tracked by the site, all lost money this year.  Only five of them were able to contain their losses to under 30%.  Thirteen gurus lost more than 50% this year; that performance is worse compared to overall market.  Nevertheless, all portfolios for which data was available substantially outperformed the indices over 5 and 10 year periods.

Clearly, all of us stand humbled by the force of the market wipeout this year.  There were no safe havens.  While suggestions to take a long-term view may sound hollow at the moment, that is nevertheless what we have to do.  Severe drops in valuations happened before and will happen again.  But as the guru scoreboard indicates, investors with a consistent long-term strategy come out on top.

This is going to be my last post of the year.  My best wishes for the New Year and a prosperous 2009!