Every December, the analysts at Goldman Sachs publish their top macro trades for the coming year – an event that attracts much hype among the investment community. But how did the bank's trades for 2012 pan out?

If you slavishly followed Goldman Sachs trade recommendations of 2012, and allocated an equal weighting of your portfolio to each trade, you would have returned 1.6% over the 12 months since November 30, 2011, excluding transaction costs. In comparison, the Barclays Global Macro Index increased just 0.01% over the past year.