Mostly Nothing — Performance Record
This is the scorecard for the stock-picking sleeve. Total Invested Assets still includes everything, but the performance record starts Dec. 12, 2025, when I first bought individual stocks.
2026 YTD: +57.15 pp versus VOO. Since Dec 12, 2025: +63.14 pp.
Scope: this is the individual-stock sleeve only. The index funds still count toward Total Invested Assets; I keep them outside this score so they do not soften a bad stock-picking result or drag down a good one.
Active stocks versus the boring alternative.
All three lines start at 100 when stock picking begins. The Mostly Nothing line contains individual stocks only; VOO is the primary benchmark and QQQ is context.
Click a name to show or hide it. VOO is the benchmark. QQQ is there only as growth-heavy context.
How to read it: 100 is the starting line. Mostly Nothing uses daily TWR for the individual-stock sleeve from the Fidelity ledger and raw closing prices; VOO and QQQ use adjusted closes. Index funds are not inside the Mostly Nothing line.
2026 YTD
Mostly Nothing leads YTD by 57.15 pp. Mostly Nothing is 72.35% versus VOO at 15.19%.
This is the active individual-stock sleeve only. The Dec. 31 opening value is reconstructed from the actual stock holdings × raw year-end closes.
| YTD item | Result |
|---|---|
| Opening active-sleeve value · Dec 31, 2025 | $12,444.31 |
| Capital deployed into active sleeve | $104,981.89 |
| Ending active-sleeve value · Oct 6, 2026 | $155,061.52 |
| Investment growth | $37,635.32 |
| Mostly Nothing TWR | 72.35% total |
| VOO TWR · same window | 15.19% total |
| TWR lead / lag | +57.15 pp |
| Same dollars in VOO | $129,882.47 |
| Dollar lead / lag | +$25,179.05 |
| Modified Dietz cross-check | 58.24% total |
| XIRR · deployed dollars | 90.19% annualized |
TWR is the headline. The other measures answer different questions or catch bad math.
Since I started picking stocks
Mostly Nothing leads since Dec 12, 2025 by 63.14 pp. Mostly Nothing is 78.70% versus VOO at 15.57%.
| Metric | Mostly Nothing | VOO benchmark | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Daily TWR | 78.70% total | 15.57% total | +63.14 pp |
| Money-weighted return (XIRR) | 90.34% annualized | 26.52% annualized | +63.82 pp |
| Capital deployed into sleeve | $116,983.66 | $116,983.66 | — |
| Matched-flow ending value | $155,061.52 | $129,417.57 | +$25,643.95 |
| Investment growth | $38,077.86 | $12,433.91 | +$25,643.95 |
The TWR gap is the cleanest answer to "did the stock picking win?" The +$25,643.95 ending-value gap answers the practical version: where did the same deployed dollars end up?
I am still not calling the dollar gap alpha. Same flows, different ending values. That is enough.
Capital deployed vs. investment growth
75.44% of the ending active-sleeve value is deployed capital and 24.56% is investment growth.
This is only the active sleeve. The index funds and other long-term accounts still matter for wealth building; this page is just where I keep the stock-picking result separate.
One benchmark, two questions
VOO is the primary benchmark.
Did the active stock sleeve beat the boring alternative? That is TWR versus VOO over the same dates. The timing and size of money moving into the sleeve are stripped out.
Did the same deployed dollars end up with more money? That is the matched-flow comparison: every dollar that entered the active sleeve on a given date goes into VOO on that same date instead.
QQQ stays on the chart as context because a lot of the portfolio is growth-heavy. It is not the primary hurdle.
What changed in the record
On Oct. 6, 2026, I corrected the scope of this page.
The old calculation treated the entire taxable + Roth account pool as the “active portfolio.” That included FXAIX, FSKAX, FSMAX and FTIHX. The math itself was fine, but it answered the wrong question. It measured the accounts, not the individual-stock decisions.
The corrected record starts when stock picking actually started and includes individual securities only.
A transfer from the index sleeve into a stock counts as money entering the active sleeve. A stock-to-stock trade stays inside it. Dividends and reinvestments stay inside it. Index purchases do not enter the record at all.
That means the old headline TWR should not be compared with the new one as if performance suddenly improved overnight. The denominator changed because the question got cleaner.
Okay, how does the math actually work?
The stuff above is the readable version. Everything below is for the person who quite reasonably wants to ask, “okay, but how did you actually calculate that?”
What exactly is in the active sleeve?
Individual stocks held in my Fidelity taxable brokerage and Roth IRA. Index mutual funds and the money-market position are excluded.
The active record begins Dec. 12, 2025 with ANET, MELI, MRVL and MU. Later stock purchases enter when capital is actually deployed into them.
Flows: when does money enter or leave the sleeve?
Money counts as an active-sleeve flow when it crosses the boundary between the individual-stock sleeve and everything outside it. That includes fresh cash and capital moved over from index funds.
A sale of one stock followed by a purchase of another stock is internal. So are dividends and reinvestments. If capital eventually moves from a stock back into the index sleeve, that becomes a withdrawal from the active sleeve.
TWR: the stock-picking number
I reconstruct the individual-stock holdings at each trading-day close from the sanitized Fidelity transaction ledger, then value those holdings using raw closing prices. Dividends and reinvestments are already in the ledger, so raw closes avoid counting distributions twice.
On a day when capital enters the active sleeve, I treat the flow as occurring at the beginning of the day because the Fidelity export gives me the date, not an intraday timestamp. Daily returns are linked geometrically into the TWR shown above.
The primary benchmark is VOO over the exact same dates.
XIRR: what my deployed dollars experienced
XIRR asks a different question: given the actual dates capital entered the active sleeve, what annualized return did those dollars experience?
The VOO XIRR uses the exact same flow dates and amounts.
Modified Dietz: the cross-check
Modified Dietz weights each active-sleeve flow by how long that capital was actually invested.
It is mainly a cross-check. TWR is the headline portfolio-performance measure.
What I am keeping consistent from here
Total Invested Assets still shows the whole long-term investment picture. This page stays narrower: it follows the active individual-stock sleeve, keeps cash flows separate from returns, and compares the result with VOO over the same dates.
For the matched-flow comparison, the same active-sleeve dollars go into VOO on the same days. Reconstructed valuations stay labeled as reconstructed, and I use raw closes when distributions are already captured in the transaction ledger.
TWR, XIRR and Modified Dietz keep their own names because they are answering different questions. If better evidence changes a number, I would rather correct it and leave the trail than defend an old calculation out of pride.