Bogleheads® contests

From Bogleheads

Bogleheads® contests are typically annual events that take place on the Bogleheads forum where members take educated guesses (or throw darts) to forecast how the current year will end. There are two longstanding contests, a predictions contest and a hedge fund contest. Both of these contests do not follow the Bogleheads® investment philosophy, they are just a fun distraction looking at the potential follies of making predictions.

This article serves to both capture the results but also draw some conclusions from the results over the years.

The Bogleheads contest overview

The challenge is to forecast the closing price of the S&P 500 index at year end. Only one guess (no percentages and no changes).

Hedge fund contest overview

Members are asked to pick up to three stocks to go long and up to three to short. Equal dollar amounts are placed on each position, long or short. No trades during the year, except that you can elect at any time during normal exchange business hours to "freeze" a price for any individual position at that day's closing price, i.e. liquidate any position.

The results

Year Bogleheads contest Hedge Fund contest
2024 Announcement and current standings Announcement and current standings
2023 Announcement and final results[1] Announcement and final results
2022 Announcement and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2021 Announcement and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2020 Announcement and final results Announcement and final results
2019 Announcement and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2018 Announcement and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2017 Announcement and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2016 Announcment and final results

Prediction statistics

Announcement and final results
2015 Announcement and final results Announcement and final results
2014 Announcement and final results Announcement and final results
2013 Announcement and final results Announcement and final results
2012 Announcement* and final results Announcement and final results
2011 Announcement* and final results Announcement and final results
2010 Announcement* and final results Announcement and final results
2009 Announcement* and final results Announcement of first contest and final results
2008 Announcement* and final results
2007 Announcement * and final results
2006 Announcement* and final results
2005 Announcement* and final results
2004 Announcement* and final results
2003 Announcement* and final results
2002 Announcement* and final results*
2001 Announcement* and final results*

First year of contest, which used the Wilshire 5000.

* Morningstar forum.

Takeaways from the results

There has been no clear, repeat winner in either contest. The unpredictability demonstrates the variation of year-to-year investor returns and reinforces the advantages of holding a diversified portfolio, which contains several asset classes.

See also

References

  1. Bogleheads forum topic: "Boglehead Contest 2023 Tracking Site", rarvesen. January 13, 2023

External links