This portfolio has returned 17.0% since May 3, 2011. Given the Wall Street approach of measuring relative returns on a one year basis, I feel good about closing in on a 7-13% market beat.

Here is the current portfolio, purchased in May 2011, originally posted here:

AAPL 14% (Huge margins, huge revenue growth, tons of cash.)
GOOG 22% (“Less than free” looks likely to crush most competitors.)
GTU 23% (US policymakers will continue printing money = gold higher.)
FCX 20% (The developing world will continue developing.)
IBB 22% (All those smart scientists will eventually do something cool.)

Not sure what to think about the 29% hit my FCX position has taken. I still believe in the developing world continuing to develop but haven’t enjoyed the loss.

I bailed on the gold trade (GTU) at 1,815 Back in August of 2011 as it seemed a bit frothy. I avoided quite a bit of pain but that money has been sitting in cash since then. Good thing it is just my money so I’m allowed to do that.

Key lessons learned so far: Don’t overthink it. Once you make a good plan, let it work for you.

2012 Goals

PERSONAL:
End the year down  30+ pounds
Continue building my Python, SQL, R skills via side projects

WORK:
Get “1″ Rated
Meet quarterly with mentor(s)

These goals look almost identical to my 2011 goals for a reason.  I felt like I was working on the right things and just want to keep progressing.  I delivered on all of my work goals in 2011 while also making significant progress on several of the personal goals.  I’m looking to “go live” with some of my side project work in 2012.  I’ve bought the domain name datajuicing.com for this purpose as well.

The HR leader leading the training said that his basic approach is consistent and simple.  ”There are weeds over there too!”  That is the bulk of the approach.  Help people process the fact that the things pissing them off here likely exist over there too.

As I think about my career it is easy to look at other industries or geographies and think life might be better there.  My favorite tool that I find useful to provide a reality check when I begin to think along those lines is Glassdoor.com.  If you haven’t used Glassdoor before, head on over and setup a free account.  Read employee verbatims of what they like and hate about their companies.  Read their “advice to senior management”.  See what they get paid, what their bonuses, profit sharing, etc is.  It is amazing how quickly the glow can come off of some glamorous sounding jobs when you read a half dozen reviews from people working in your function at the company that all complain about the same thing.  Whether it is nepotism, office politics, work-life balance, no raises, no career planning, terrible systems, an organizational prejudice against a certain function, an outsourcing trend, etc – WAY better to know that dynamic exists up front.

P&G has 127,000+ employees.  No matter how good of a screening job you do, there will still be some jerks in a group that big.  However, as Glassdoor demonstrates, we are now living in the age of transparency.  If organizations as a whole exhibit significant dysfunctions in their culture, people WILL find out.  I hear people (mostly from older generations) bemoan the new openness and public nature of the Internet.  I’m a big believer in the old adage that “sunshine is the best disinfectant”.  I think if you are a good person or a good company that generally does the right thing, you have nothing to fear from transparency and openness. Go check out Glassdoor.  Post a review of your company.  Go read some reviews from employees at companies you are envious of.  ”Test drive” that greener grass from the safety of your couch.  Leave a comment below and let me know what you find that surprises you.

General Manager College Curriculum
Day 1 –  Make it Bigger!
Day 2 –  Make it Faster!
Day 3 - Everything that goes wrong was your predecessor’s fault.

Actually doing something takes balls. It’s much easier to design requirements or write scope statements or document desired outcomes and key resources that will be needed. Technology today often makes it possible to produce a finished product in the same time it used to take to sketch a draft of what a product might be. I get that process is mission critical in some contexts. I also get that a lot of people default to process because they are lazy. I like the “Manifesto” angle and find it personally helpful to cultivate a certain level of disrespect for and animosity towards people and institutions that default to process over doing.

The poster version of the Cult of Done Manifesto is pasted below.
1. Print it out.
2. Hang it up.
3. Go DO something.

Quora won.

Originally the two sites had similarly strong buzz. Looking at the landscape today it looks like Namesake’s invite-only closed beta approach lost them the fight. No critical mass of users = no compelling content base = TKO. Still stumbling around, but it is obvious to everyone else you are done.

Quora is completely crushing Namesake based on my 15 min of browsing. Namesake seems like a ghost town compared to Quora. Activity levels and total membership both look low in comparison. With those initial impressions of the site, I’m not motivated to contribute. I work in finance, so lets take the Corporate Finance topic as an example. 7 people are following it and one conversation exists. The one conversation is basically this: “Demand Media’s IPO went well, don’t you think the market is overpriced?” First of all, it is the market. That is what it is worth. If you disagree, then go short it. This doesn’t sound like the place I am going to go for corporate finance advice. Additionally, if only 7 people are following the Corporate Finance topic, do I really want to start spouting my thoughts on corporate finance? I might get “endorsed” or become an “expert”, but that doesn’t jive with the real world. I know way more than 7 people at P&G that have much more sick finance skills than me. Pretending I’m a baller on the internet doesn’t seem like a value-added activity. At Quora, people throw out opinions that get vetted/validated by the crowd. You don’t need to claim any expertise to participate. Upvotes fly fast and furious to incent participation and the ranking of answers based on votes vs a chronological ordering seems to be a much more elegant and engaging solution.

It looks to me like Namesake lost this one. Worst of all, it looks like they did it to themselves with their choice of beta style. Alternatively, the alignment of their PR efforts and product readiness was just way off. That’s the only way I can explain this outcome.

AAPL 14% (Huge margins, huge revenue growth, tons of cash.)
GOOG 22% ("Less than free” looks likely to crush most competitors.)
GTU 23% (US policymakers will continue printing money = gold higher.)
FCX 20% (The developing world will continue developing.)
IBB 22% (All those smart scientists will eventually do something cool.)

I’m often accused of being ADD in my fantasy baseball league, so we’ll see how long I can leave this alone. Ideally I wouldn’t touch this for at least a year or two.

http://damnyouautocorrect.com/4077/10-most-popular-autocorrects-from-december-2010/.

Check that link out for a good laugh and be grateful you don’t have an iPhone so it can’t brutalize you like it did those poor saps. Ok, end of test – looks like this basically works. We’ll see if this enables me to post more frequently.

Here is a summary of my trades of the last 4 years or so.

Trade #1 (Winner) – Buy Gold via CEF with gold at $600 back in 2008ish? Sell at $1000+ and rebuy at $900. Just sold again at $1500+ last week. 2.5x

Trade #2 (Winner) – Close all positions with market at roughly 11,000 in fall 2008 when I see on C-SPAN that Congress isn’t going to pass first TARP bill. I look like a hero as market falls to 6,000ish. Avoid getting cut in half.

No Trade #2.5 (Loser) – I never rebuy. Buffett say its time to buy, I see 4,000 around the corner and take a pass. Market now at 12,000+ and all of a sudden Trade #2 doesn’t look so great. Miss an easy double.

Trade #3 (Loser) – Try to make money shorting commercial real estate over a long period of time using a short term structured ETF. Very bad idea, lose lots of money. I suck at trading. I’m reminded yet again to not even play if you aren’t going to put the work in. Lose 75% of position.

Trade #4 (Winner) – Buy SLV at $13.89. Sell last week at $45ish. 3x

Net – I’m basically completely flat over those 4 years. Basically on par with the market.

I’m completely in cash now but want to get back in and “set it and forget it.”

Current shopping list looks like this:
Buy AAPL
Buy GOOG
Buy CEF (Canadian gold trust)

This passes the Warren Buffett test where hypothetically the market closes tomorrow for 10 years. I’d feel just fine owning these three. Keep it simple.