Is there a bell shaped curve that can be given for the
"Average club portfolio: $64,561" listed on the home page of
Bivio? In other words are the top 10-15 clubs that Bivio has
on the books unduly skewing the overall averages to a higher
amount? Maybe if the Mean or the Mode was available as well
that would be more useful info.

I really have been curious lately about how our club stacks
up against the curve and there seems to be a lack of info on
that topic out there.

Thanks,
Tom

Thomas M Whitelaw Jr. writes:
> Is there a bell shaped curve that can be given for the
> "Average club portfolio: $64,561" listed on the home page of
> Bivio? In other words are the top 10-15 clubs that Bivio has
> on the books unduly skewing the overall averages to a higher
> amount? Maybe if the Mean or the Mode was available as well
> that would be more useful info.
>
> I really have been curious lately about how our club stacks
> up against the curve and there seems to be a lack of info on
> that topic out there.

This is a very interesting question, and I can assure you that the
"data nuts" at bivio (yours truly being nut-in-chief) have thought
about the problem of self-selection, outliers, and such.

The clubs included in our average portfolio is based on a filtered set
of bivio clubs. You can read a bit about this on our Club Index page:

http://www.bivio.com/hm/club-index.html

We don't disclose the filter to help keep it robust against nefarious
activities.

The average holding is probably less interesting than the
performance of the "average" club, which is what the Club Index
tracks. Now, for cash flow reasons, you can't really compare apples
to apples by looking at your AIRR and the Club Index's AIRR. However,
the investment performance is interesting to look at:

http://www.bivio.com/club_index/accounting/reports/investment-performance

You can see the types of investments that are performning well, and
what percentage they consume of the portfolio. Garmin, Fastenal, and
Apple top the list. These stock are not on the top holdings of most
clubs. I find that interesting, and I always wonder why the GE still
tops the list, despite its poor performance.

Rob

Rob Nagler wrote:
> Thomas M Whitelaw Jr. writes:
> > Is there a bell shaped curve that can be given for the
> > "Average club portfolio: $64,561" listed on the home page of
> > Bivio? In other words are the top 10-15 clubs that Bivio has
> > on the books unduly skewing the overall averages to a higher
> > amount? Maybe if the Mean or the Mode was available as well
> > that would be more useful info.
> >
> > I really have been curious lately about how our club stacks
> > up against the curve and there seems to be a lack of info on
> > that topic out there.
>
> This is a very interesting question, and I can assure you that the
> "data nuts" at bivio (yours truly being nut-in-chief) have thought
> about the problem of self-selection, outliers, and such.
>
> The clubs included in our average portfolio is based on a filtered set
> of bivio clubs. You can read a bit about this on our Club Index page:
>
> http://www.bivio.com/hm/club-index.html
>
> We don't disclose the filter to help keep it robust against nefarious
> activities.
>
> The average holding is probably less interesting than the
> performance of the "average" club, which is what the Club Index
> tracks. Now, for cash flow reasons, you can't really compare apples
> to apples by looking at your AIRR and the Club Index's AIRR. However,
> the investment performance is interesting to look at:
>
> http://www.bivio.com/club_index/accounting/reports/investment-performance
>
> You can see the types of investments that are performning well, and
> what percentage they consume of the portfolio. Garmin, Fastenal, and
> Apple top the list. These stock are not on the top holdings of most
> clubs. I find that interesting, and I always wonder why the GE still
> tops the list, despite its poor performance.
>
> Rob

Thanks for the info Rob,

I had already looked at the index calc info before. What I
am really trying to do is see if my club is "average". In
the amounts of money we have invested at this point in time
in our club history, number of stocks/companies held, number
of participants, etc. So was mainly trying to see how we
stack up against the "average" club statistically. Which it
does not sound like this number is.

Any way to get an average club size (in dollars), by either
club participant size or age of club or both? Perhaps then
also have average number of stocks (companies) held for each
of those size clubs as well?

I do not see anyone else out there providing this kind of
comparison info. Yes I understand each club is unique, but
most clubs unless they are doing something way off base will
conform to some version of a bell shaped curve and can be
reported on from the data you have.

Thanks again, we are hoping to be an average or better NAIC
club.... :-)

Tom

Thomas M Whitelaw Jr. writes:
> Any way to get an average club size (in dollars), by either
> club participant size or age of club or both? Perhaps then
> also have average number of stocks (companies) held for each
> of those size clubs as well?

We don't have these stats handy, unfortunately. A rule of thumb is 1
stock per member and about 10 members per club.

The amount of capital is based on the age of the club. We have some
clubs with millions and others with hundreds. It's a broad range.

> Thanks again, we are hoping to be an average or better NAIC
> club.... :-)

I would say then that your goal is to get better than 15% AIRR. We do
have clubs that beat 15%, but most clubs (as demonstrated by our club
index), don't. Our guess is that they hold on to stocks too long,
but that's not a statistical answer.

There are a couple of clubs with public portfolios on bivio:

http://www.bivio.com/iclwc/accounting/reports/benchmark
http://www.bivio.com/challenge/accounting/reports/benchmark

These are "NAIC" clubs. Perhaps this will help.

Cheers,
Rob