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Home > Archive: May, 2011

Archive for May, 2011

April 2011

May 3rd, 2011 at 03:30 pm

Cash & Savings: $59,071 (-24.55%)
Foreign Currency: $32,772 (0.93%)
US Brokerage: $151,387 (4.75%)
Overseas Brokerage: $104,495 (3.38%)
401(k): $66,418 (3.13%)
IRA: $99,672 (3.77%)
Roth IRA: $26,969 (-3.77%)
Total Assets: $540,784 (-0.74%)

In April I invested $15,000 into my friend's business that led to the 1/4 drop of my cash position. Other than that the rest of my portfolio performed quite well except my Roth IRA account that includes some tanker stocks that I am stupid enough to hold on to them. If I had sold them when the economy began to slow I would have limited the loss if not making a small profit. The lesson I learned is that certain cyclical stocks are just not suitable for buy-and-hold strategy. Other blue chip stocks may be able to ride through the storm but they are more of the exceptions.

One thing I completely missed is silver. I had actually reserved money back in December to purchase at least $10,000 worth of silver. However, after I returned from my long vacation in January silver had already enjoyed a small run up from 27 to 30, a 10% uptick that I thought was due for correction - and it did. Unfortunately I was caught in some office politics that completely distracted me and the next thing I, and the rest of the world, know is the crazy run up of silver to $48 before the 12% correction yesterday. But even if silver stands at $40 it would still have been a 33% return in 4 months time. Another lesson learned.

Lastly, as I was writing my monthly entry this morning I realized that I had erronously double counted another acount as as US Brokerage account, hence inflating my total assets. I had to go back to December 2011 to correct all my entries.