Portfolio Update: the Half-Year Benchmark
Boring Portfolio
Stock: US$74,783.90
Cash: US$364.85
Total: US$75,148.75
Still flashing a buy signal, but ballast is insufficient. Nothing to buy. Nothing exciting (which is good).
QQQ Portfolio
Stock: US$81,887.40
Cash: US$17,308.50
Total: US$99,195.90
Liquidated some stock, as a price signal indicated I should.
Half-year Benchmark
A friend I got to know who used to be in the finance sector asked me for the half-year benchmark. Using my portfolio values on 11 March as my base, I would have gotten a 19.99% gain in my boring portfolio, and a whooping 44.34% gain for the QQQ portfolio.
This is expected, as the boring portfolio consisted of mainly safe dividend-bearing stocks, but also because it was exposed to a banking stock at the beginning - without the ballast system put in place, the portfolio would have been torn to shreds. As it stands, the system managed to salvage as much of the situation as it could, and I am very glad of the gentleman whom I consider my mentor, who taught me the basics of how the system works.
Astute readers would have realised that the base against which the fund is indexed against to show a profit or loss can be very arbitrary. This is how the fund management world (and politics?) works as well - the data does not lie but it can be manipulated to show what anybody wants to show.
Stock: US$74,783.90
Cash: US$364.85
Total: US$75,148.75
Still flashing a buy signal, but ballast is insufficient. Nothing to buy. Nothing exciting (which is good).
QQQ Portfolio
Stock: US$81,887.40
Cash: US$17,308.50
Total: US$99,195.90
Liquidated some stock, as a price signal indicated I should.
Half-year Benchmark
A friend I got to know who used to be in the finance sector asked me for the half-year benchmark. Using my portfolio values on 11 March as my base, I would have gotten a 19.99% gain in my boring portfolio, and a whooping 44.34% gain for the QQQ portfolio.
This is expected, as the boring portfolio consisted of mainly safe dividend-bearing stocks, but also because it was exposed to a banking stock at the beginning - without the ballast system put in place, the portfolio would have been torn to shreds. As it stands, the system managed to salvage as much of the situation as it could, and I am very glad of the gentleman whom I consider my mentor, who taught me the basics of how the system works.
Astute readers would have realised that the base against which the fund is indexed against to show a profit or loss can be very arbitrary. This is how the fund management world (and politics?) works as well - the data does not lie but it can be manipulated to show what anybody wants to show.
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