Here's the time-weighted return I've managed in my main retirement portfolio for the last 3 years:
I've managed to compound at 17% annually. This is pretty good and has managed to beat the S&P, but much more importantly I've managed to do it with lower volatility.
The annualised Sharpe Ratio is 0.9 for the Portfolio over this time vs 0.6 for the S&P.. not bad considering the huge volatility we saw earlier this year.
Here's the actual dollar (well, GBP) amount, showing the amount total amount of the portfolio vs the book cost as monthly cashflows have gone in: