Under protest, I once again present “how I did” for the year: theoretical 2024 gains.
The protest and the quotes are for the same reason; nobody buys everything on January 2 and sells everything on December 31 (or the first and last trading days of the year, wherever they happen to be). Yearly performance metrics are not real and often diverge greatly from actual results. This is especially misleading when traders don’t take profits on big wins that slip through their fingers.
But everyone seems to want to know how I do on a yearly basis, so here’s my report on 2024—this time taking a stab at My Take as well as The Independent Speculator.
Let’s start with The Independent Speculator, since I can present the results graphically and a picture is worth 1,000 words.
As you can see, the average result of my portfolio over 2024 was nicely positive (dark blue bar to the right of the left-most cluster of bars). It wasn’t my best year, but it was my best year since 2020, which set a high bar.
Note as well that The Independent Speculator portfolio did better last year than the most relevant comparables: the TSX-V, the GDXJ, and the Bloomberg Commodity Index. Thanks to the “Magnificent 7,” the S&P 500 beat me, but that’s not a comparable; I include it by way of reference.
For those who want to see the numbers, here they are:
As always, I think my actual track record—not a theoretical or model portfolio, but the cumulative results of all my completed trades since becoming The Independent Speculator—is much more important.
Here’s the current summary:
Reporting on My Take is more complicated, since there’s no portfolio. However, I do give each company a clear thumbs-up or -down. If these ratings have any merit, thumbs-up companies should to better than thumbs-down companies in any given year.
Of the 925 companies currently in the My Take database, 748 are active. The rest are delisted, taken over, etc. Of these 748 stocks, 90 have a thumbs-up: 45 gold, six copper, 16 uranium, six silver, with a smattering of lithium, nickel, and other plays.
Here’s the average performance of these, sorted by metal (where there were enough to matter):
To interpret these results, consider that all the gold companies on the list gained an average of 9.66%, while thumbs-up stocks gained 43.49% and thumbs-down yielded only 4.6%.
As you can see, thumbs-ups outperformed thumbs-downs overall and in all the major metals we cover, except copper.
Clearly, I was too bearish on copper in 2024, resulting in almost all copper stocks getting thumbs-downs in a year in which they did okay, on average. I had my reasons. I wasn’t anti-copper in 2024; I just thought it was too soon to get in—especially pre-Trump tariffs. Happily, I said throughout that independent speculators who were bullish on copper were welcome to make a different call, so they need not have missed out.
I can live with this result. Given the clearly positive value of my thumbs (or claws, as the case may be) overall, I’m unapologetic.
Note that there were a few companies on which changed my thumbs during the year. For the averages above, we’ve used the thumb I had at the beginning of the year. This is not entirely accurate, but it seems more representative than using the thumb after I changed my mind. Or at least, I can’t be accused of making excuses after the fact.
So there you have it: The Independent Speculator once again beat its comparable benchmarks and My Take is helping clients make better stock picks.
Caveat emptor,
