Easy Cloud's Personal Finance Blog

Cash & Savings: $24,663 (-27.44%)
Foreign Currency: $35,590
Brokerage: $131,043 (-1.57%)
401(k): $19,723 (-2.61%)
IRA: $94,115 (-3.86%)
Roth IRA: $17,714 (-14.01%)
Stock Option: $20,443 (-7.34%)
Total Assets: $321,091 (-2.08%)

Just like October, November is another bad month for the global stock market. The devaluation of USD also hurts me overseas as I have to spend a tremdous amount of time in HK and China.

At both places I can feel the inflation on every day items, most notably food. Either the portion gets smaller or the price has gone up.

In China the USD is dropping like a rock. I tried to get as much Chinese Yuan out as possible to stop the bleeding. But there is a limit on how much you can withdraw in a given month so I've been hurt by that. Because of this, I also added a new item to reflect the amount of foreign currency I hold because it is a pretty big portion of my Cash & Savings category and it will only get larger over time.

This month marks the first time that my total assets dropped since I started the blog, mainly thanks to the ~$7,000 loss in the stock market.

Because I expect US dollars to continue its slide for strategy for the next two months is to convert as much cash to Chinese Yuan as possible. People expect the Yuan to rise to 7.0 against the dollar vs. 7.4 as it is now. That's a 5% rise from the current level. Quite significant!

Cash & Savings: $33,988 (+79.26%)
Brokerage: $133,127 (+2.23%)
401(k): $20,252 (+18.37%)
IRA: $97,891 (+7.13%)
Roth IRA: $20,601 (+25.04%)
Stock Option: $22,063 (+7.53%)
Total Assets: $327,922 (+11.09%)

October turns out to be another ugly month as I continue to make some bad investments. It seems like every week I just pick the worst performers from Barron's. Is my luck running out?

However, thanks to the Fed my protfolio still looks much much better than the last update, although I don't expect the party to last forever. Next time I will talk about how the falling USD is hurting me and my response to that.

I spoke about how I plan to find a high-yield MMA or CD last month. Interestingly, after doing some research after I returned from Malaysia, one of the highest yielding CD I found on BankRate.com is actually the Internet bank I have been using for years with a 5.43% APY. I used to have a savings account with them but closed it after ING Direct came out. That was before the mainstream banks like Citibank and HSBC introduced their online MMA offerings.

I opened the CD right before the Fed lowered their overnight lending rate by 50 basis points. However, I am surprised to learn that this move, however, doesn't make the bank lower their CD yield, at least not yet.

If I can stash away a little more I will put them into another 12-month CD as my emergency fund (instead of randomly invest it here and there).

I should have done the update more than 2 weeks ago but work has absolutel caught up on me after spending a week in Sabah, Malaysia for vacation.

Cash & Savings: $18,960.38 (+8.48%)
Brokerage: $130,217.05 (+4.34%)
401(k): $17,109.45 (+17.34%)
IRA: $91,379.13 (-2.01%)
Roth IRA: $16,475.24 (-12.88%)
Stock Option: $20,518.05 (-4.00%)
Total Assets: $295,195.40 (+1.52%)

Needless to say, if I had done it two weeks ago this report will look much gloomier than now.

The overall result is not awful but in the next entry I'll discuss why I have floundered and what actions I plan to take to improve my return.

The day has come...one of my stocks just lost slightly over 80% today due to the sub prime woe (Alt-A to be more specific). Some other stocks are being hit very hard lately but no one gets close to this one.

Last week the market reminded me of the post-911 market but back then I have a much smaller portfolio so to me materially this market correction, to put it conservatively, pounds my portfolio much harder than 911 plus and the dot com crash combined.

This is going to be a long summer to bear...

I started to use Internet bank back in 2000 to enjoy the higher yield. Then ING Direct came along so I jumped to them right away. Later on Citibank came up with a 5% online savings account that just beat every one else's yeild so I moved again.

Unfortuantely, a few days ago I realized Citi had lowered the yield to 4.25%, much lower than what other institutions are offering.

After some research on Bankrate.com I found GMAC with a 4-star rating that offers a yield of 5.3% APY. That sounds pretty good to me, but I'd like to know if any one on this board has any experience with GMAC before I dump Citi. Please share your experience with me.

The beginning of my blog happens to be right after the biggest drop of global markets this year. The positive side is that I will start with a lower basis than a week ago but the negative side that it can very well go down even furhter from here.

Regardless, this is where I am:

Cash & Savings: $17,477.70
Brokerage: $124,800.83
401(k): $14,581.07
IRA: $93,246.83
Roth IRA: $18,910.08
Stock Option: $21,395.55
Total Assets: $290,769.54

It is a far cry from the ultimate goal but I still have plenty of time ahead of me. We shall see.