I owe you all a ton of apologies. I had comments enabled and never knew how to moderate them. Now, I know. I’m sorry everyone. Now to go back and comment on all the comments.
Confession Time: I used to be a day trader…
I have a little time until I start my new job, so to fill some of that, I’ve been watching CNBC. With news that the Dow is at nearly a 7-year high, it’s starting to bring back some of that old enthusiasm.
Economically things are looking good in several areas. Oil prices might test $60 a barrel soon. As I mentioned earlier, Mortgage rates seem to be dropping. The consumer confidence is up.
So naturally, I’m going to have hop back into the market and start trading stocks like I did in the past. I’m joking, that would be the worst idea, I’ve ever had. I’m going to continue to sock money into my Prosper account, Vanguard’s mutual funds with it’s low expense ratios, and ETFs.
Net Worth Update – August edition
It’s a little earlier than I usually do my net worth update. After the late one last month, I figured I’d get this one out now. There’s lots of good news in the Lazy Man’s accounts this month. Last Month I was concerned that my net worth was going in the wrong direction. It’s not that I wasn’t saving, but the stock market downturn was eating up a lot of my gains.
So I’m to where I was in April and making up the 6K that I’ve lost over the last 4 months. I think my experiment in maxing out my 401k has helped the short term bottom line. Instead of having the government take the money in taxes, it fills my 401k and I’ll pay taxes on it years from now. And to make sure that the 401K stays healthy I rebalanced it today focusing a little more on large cap stocks which seem to have better P/E ratios than the smaller stocks recently.
Net Worth Update
For the fourth month that I’ve been keeping track, I’ve made no headway in my overall net worth. In the first month the stock market took 5% off of my retirement accounts and I have yet to recover. I continue to invest maybe a little more than I should. I take solace in that I’m buying equity at cheaper prices now.
Net Worth Going in the Wrong Direction
For the third straight month since I’ve started really keeping track of my net worth, it’s gone down. While that is scary, a closer examination shows that I’m losing money in my retirement accounts due to a weak stock market. Considering that I don’t plan to access this money for 35 years, I’m not going to worry too much.
Most of my net worth is in three areas.
- My Home – Equity there is about 40% of my net worth.
- Retirement accounts – They are about 45% of my net worth.
- Cash and equivalents – (ING, Prosper, even my mutual fund is in here) accounts for the rest.
That last third portion isn’t really doing a whole lot as it’s not invested in large growth areas. I really need to start focusing on just saving more money.