Investment Performance September 2011 (-7.05%)

This is an ongoing monthly update on how our equity investments are performing. Please see this background on the investment tool I developed and how I am using it to track our performance against a benchmark to measure our progress or lack thereof.

September Highlights:

September turned into a bloodbath as the 3rd worst overall month since I have been keeping track only missing Feb 2009 (-9.94%) and May 2010 (-8.13%).
Our portfolio nicely beat our VTI benchmark for the month (-7.05% vs -7.59%).
Things look more attractive in the market to me, but I'm gunshy because of our low cash position.
We sold our position in China Fire & Safety Group early in the month to a nice profit, and then slowly made some investments in Genworth (GNW) and Bank of America (BAC).
We also made our regular monthly investments in our IRAs and Conocco Philips DRIP, and had some dividends and dividend reinvestments.
Our recent monthly returns were: Jan 09 -4.98%, Feb -9.94%, Mar +8.45%, Apr +10.88%, May +4.65%, Jun +0.89%, Jul +9.94%, Aug +4.36%, Sept 3.15%, Oct -2.34%, Nov +5.83%, Dec +1.85%, Jan '10 -2.34%, Feb +2.25%, Mar +5.88%, Apr +2.54%, May -8.13%, June -5.64%, July 6.17%. Aug -4.87%, Sept +8.48%, Oct 2.47%, Nov -0.96%, Dec +8.01%, Jan 2011 +2.06%, Feb 2.57%, Mar +0.15%, Apr +3.04%, May -1.56%, June -1.63%, July -2.71%, Aug -5.42%, Sept -7.06%.....

September 2011 Investment Report:

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Comments (3)

I'd love to hear more on your baby expenses, tips and how you manage it. My wife and I will have a baby in June and would love to hear how you and your wife have coped. Thanks.

Posted by Steve | October 17, 2011 9:02 PM

I am struggling to understand - do you inject any money or additional shares come from dividends reinvestment?

Posted by Financial Independence | October 19, 2011 9:42 AM

FI - look at the bottom of the table summary under "Total Net Contribution" -- this is the amount of cash taken out or contributed to our stock investments. You can see for on this report for the month of Sept we took out a net $2,278 in cash from stock sales, dividends, etc.

Posted by 2million | October 19, 2011 10:36 AM