Dodge & Cox Stock Fund - (DODGX)

My wife owns Dodge & Cox’s Stock Fund (DODGX) and its been a great performer for her account. I just wish they offered it in my 401K! Despite the nice trending chart below, DODGX is not without its risks.

I ran a quick Monte Carlo simulation and discovered quite a few nasty negative return outcomes for DODGX. In fact there’s 0.04% chance for a nasty -51% rate of return over the past 10 years. Did it happen? No, but its a possibility!

However, the good news is that the majority of the outcomes are skewed toward positive rates of return. There’s 62% chance that your return will be in the green (or red for my Asian friends) at the end of the year. I like those odds!

Update

It’s been over 13 years and we still own Dodge & Cox stock fund for both our retirement accounts. This mutual fund has been a great performer for us over the last decade but with some hiccups. Most notably the past recessions and Covid19.

Here’s a current chart so you can fast forward in time.

About a year after I made this 2007 post, the 2008 recession hit everyone hard. DODGX took a huge tumble but we still held on and dollar cost averaged into it. When it recovered it peaked above $200 a share before COVID19 hit. Then Covid19 took the air out it’s sails and it dropped back to somewhere between the 2007 peak (if you squint) and 2008 price range.

Despite all this volatility over the years, it’s been pretty stable and it’s share price has been increasing. It’s also been paying dividends that we automatically reinvest back into the fund. Yes, there were white knuckles and churning stomachs back in 2007/2008 because our very first meager investments dropped like a rock, but we held on. Now, looking back, Covid19 didn’t scare us as much because we know that in the long term passive investing works. We’ve built up solid portfolios that can weather these market hiccups and keep moving forward to that mystical retirement on a beach somewhere.