Keeping it rolling, only 31 months from Financial Independence!
Much better month in November (+1.32% gain) than October (+0.47%), especially at the end, where the market really jumped up. I started the month with $952K of invested assets, put in $4,108 into my various accounts (401K, Roth IRA, brokerage), and ended with $969K (almost to $1M, yay!). For the year, all total, I am still up around 9.6%, and that is with a 70% stock/REIT and 30% bond mix.
Bonds continue to not perform very well (up only about 0.1% for the month) but they are providing the stability that I want (in case of a market downturn). Surprisingly, the REITs were up (about 3.0% for the month) – maybe they are just returning to where they should have been after a pretty bad year. The International was OK for the month (up 0.8% for month), and the S&P 500 and small cap indexes really did well (around 3.1% for the month).
My dividend portfolio (from my dad’s inherited IRA) is up about 3.0%, primarily due to REITS, though the Chevron and
Verizon stocks did great (Chevron was up 9.2% in November). That at the same time that they are due to pump out some end-of-year dividends to help out (this may be the reason they are up – folks are buying them to get the dividend).
In the value portfolio
- CSS Industries stock was down almost 10% for the month, and went into negative territory for the year. I’ll go through my 6-month stock analysis in a later post, as I try and determine whether to keep a stock
- Gilead was down 0.2% for the month, but still up 10% for the year
- Taho continues to underperform, down another 8.1%, and over 20% for the year. Legal troubles in Central America continue to be a drag
- For December, I plan on continuing to put my investment money into my bond mutual fund. I want to get my allocation more in line there with a 33% REITS/ 33% bonds/33% stocks plan. This will call on me to probably buy bonds each month for the rest of the year
- The big lesson for the value portfolio continues to be that I’m not a very good stock picker, or that I need to be patient (i.e. 3-5 years patient) in order for it to pay off.
I continue to make progress towards my FIRE goal. While I expect a market correction at some point, I think we will be able to weather it, provided the Zombie Apocalypse doesn’t come.
How did your November go? How are your plans for the year going?
Mr. 39 Months.