It is time, yet again, for the monthly airing of my private financial laundry. This is going to be a quick update as the day job and the toddler are keeping me fully occupied. It is easier to carve out time to write, however, then you have a good month like July!
All of the prior updates in this series are available on the Savings Diary page. The first, I’m Just Saving…Personal Finance Diary kind of provides the “origins story.”
LAST Month
In the June update, I discussed how the market roared back from the sell-off in May. I was up about 6% in investments and continued at my base rate automated savings level, ending the month at $214,000.
CURRENT PORTFOLIO
I remain “overweight” foreign stocks. See Media Pin of the Week – More GMO, Weekly Media Pin – Grantham on Graham, Best Foreign Value Factor ETFs, Resource Roundup: More CAPE, and Foreign Value Factor ETFs Update.
Overall, about 50% of my overall portfolio is allocated to non-U.S. domiciled stocks. (I suppose that is only a relative overweight). I also manage a bit of my portfolio based on a little systematic, trend strategy. I’e also got about 20% allocated to bonds. Excluding the “trend allocation,” I’m only actively stock picking (including value tilt and other factor allocations) in about 10% of my portfolio.
I recently sold some Avon as they agreed to be taken out (a bit of a take-under for me), and the premium between the merger price and the stock got somewhat small. I sold about a third of the position. I will do an update at some point.
THIS MONTH
Nothing unusual happened on the income and spending fronts. In July the market continue to appreciate. The S&P 500 was up about 1.4% Foreign stocks were down slightly (~1.2%). I got paid three times in July so my savings were a little higher than usual. I ended up the month at ~$219,000. So an increase of about $5,000.
ONWARD
July was nice, but as I sit here writing to you from the future (i.e., August), things are getting a little rocky. Thankfully, I have a behavioral release valve in a little allocation to a trend “strategy.” I find it helpful to have a system to refer to. It certainly feels more scientific than parsing tweets…