Investment Performance July 2013 (+6.45%)

This is our monthly investment portfolio report. I view our ability to invest with above average rates of return as the most important factor in reaching our financial freedom goals. This investment report covers our taxable portfolio and IRA retirement accounts. My 401k (which is roughly 1/2 our portfolio) is not included as the index funds it includes are not publicly traded and difficult to incorporate in this report.

July Highlights:

Our portfolio had significant gains in July (+6.45%) and we did outperform our VTI benchmark (+5.75%). This is on top of a gain of upwards of 15% for the 1H2013!
The market's continued rally has given me a bit of pause over valuations. We decided to reduce our stakes in a few investments as we moved ~$10k to cash accounts for future opportunities.
We also made our regular monthly investments in our Roth IRAs, and had some dividend & dividend reinvestments.
I also reduced our Roth IRA contributions a bit for the remainder of the year as its not clear if the work assignment package will disqualify us from contributing the maximum to our Roth IRAs this year. I won't really know if this is the case, but our experience on our previous assignment suggests this may be the case.
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%, Oct +9.88%, Nov -0.39%, Dec +2.10%, Jan '12 +4.03%, Feb +4.68%, Mar +2.35%, Apr -1.74%, Sept +3.47%, Oct 0.10%, Nov -0.20%, Dec +3.09%, Jan '13 +6.72%, Feb +0.49%, Mar +4.52%, Apr +1.30%, May +2.87%, June -0.97%, Jul +6.45%.....

July 2013 Investment Report:

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