Actually…what I meant to say… was that I’m delighted to hear about your full recovery. And keep up the great blogging!

These results are in Canadian dollars. If you’re an American, looking at pure comparative percentages, you’ll have to add about 15% to these results, because the Canadian dollar has gained roughly 15% on the U.S. dollar during this time period.

So, to keep up with Harry, your American account would have needed to have gained about 16.3% in U.S. dollars from August, 2008 to December 3, 2009.

A look at the largest actively managed balanced fund in the U.S. (the American Funds Balanced Fund) reveals that it’s down roughly 8% in U.S. dollars since August, 2008–or 23% in Canadian dollars. http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ABALX#chart1:symbol=abalx;range=2y;compare=^gspc;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

That puts it 24.3% behind Harry’s account, when measured in U.S. dollars.

In pure dollar numbers, Harry’s account would be more than $60,000 ahead of an investment in The American Funds Balanced account. And that doesn’t include the 5.75% sales fee that your broker would have charged you to buy the American Funds A class fund.

If you can find a better balanced performer from Canada or the U.S., please let me know. Jason Zweig suggests that the odds of beating a portfolio of indexes with active management (based on their past performance) is about as likely as the Abominable Snowman and the Tooth Fairy showing up at your latest cocktail party. Not impossible. But not likely.

You’ve made my day. I’ve really tried to write clearly about investments and I’ve learned a lot about what jargon/concepts most people understand and where they tend to get lost. I give occassional investment seminars in Singapore (where I donate the proceeds to charity) and it gives me the opportunity to question people while I’m speaking, to ensure that the concepts and ideas (and vocabulary) are understood. Thank you so much for the positive comment. I’ll continue aspiring towards ensuring that my investment-related writing (and speaking) is a heck of a lot easier to understand than a bank newsletter would be.

I’m sad to hear, though, that you have lost most of your savings. And I’m also curious to know where it was invested. If you feel like sharing, you can contact me at investlikebuffett@gmail.com

As for Indonesia–you would be amazed to see how well retired expatriates can live, especially if they have a pension coming in from home.

Thanks again,
Andrew

Thanks for reading Peter–and thanks for the encouragement.