2014 has been a rough year to navigate. I went against the grain in January and bet big on one macro trend—that long-term interest rates would fall in 2014 rather than rise—and invested heavily in equity REITs and mortgage REITs. That bet paid off handsomely, and my conservative, income-oriented portfolios have had a great year.

But where do I even start on all of the investing mistakes I made this year…

In my more aggressive portfolios, I made large allocations to emerging markets…just in time to see most emerging markets have the worst January in years.  My pick in this year's InvestorPlace Best Stocks contest—South African telecom giant MTN Group(MTNOY)—was a play on the emerging market theme, and it has landed me squarely in last place.

I invested in Russian stocks during the Crimea and Ukraine crises believing that Western sanctions would be mostly toothless and that Russian stocks were too cheap to ignore. Well, that theory sounded great…right up until the price of crude oil collapsed, sending Russian stocks into a tailspin.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I didn't see the crude oil collapse coming. My income oriented portfolios had a large allocation MLP general partners, and the collapse in MLP prices eroded most of my outperformance from earlier in the year.

I also recommended Prospect Capital (PSEC), noting that I believed a dividend cut was unlikely given the strong insider buying patterns I saw. Six weeks later, it cut its dividend.

Sigh…

But my biggest mea culpa of 2014 was getting into Brazilian stocks at precisely the wrong time. The iShares MSCI Brazil ETF(EWZ) rallied 42% going into September of this year. Even after that move, I believed Brazilian stocks to be cheap and underowned. With a new, market-friendly president taking office, I believed Brazil was primed for several years of solid returns.