December 2007 Report

All figures are in US Dollars (USD) unless otherwise stated. This month saw a fall in net worth in US Dollar terms partly due to the fall in the Australian Dollar and partly to poor investment performance due to the continuing decline in global stock markets this month. Both these trends were milder than last month. Net worth also decreased in Australian Dollars terms. Trading results were bad and I stopped active trading to focus on improving my trading performance using simulated trading.

Income and Expenditure



Expenditure was $3,547 - there were no exceptional expenses. There were $315 of implicit car expenses - depreciation and interest - so actual cash expenditure was $3,212.

Non-investment earnings ($5,924) included another refund of work-related expenses from Snork Maiden's employer. She also again got paid by her previous employer. We've told them to stop paying and we may need to pay this money back, but for the moment I am counting it as income. Snork Maiden's retirement contributions from her employer were $559.

Non-retirement accounts lost $6,052 with $1,414 of the loss resulting from the fall in the Australian Dollar. Retirement accounts lost $1,731 but would have lost only $405 if exchange rates had remained constant. This gain is due to the strong exposure to bonds in our retirement accounts and the stronger exposure to equities in our non-retirement accounts. Trading contributed around half the loss in the non-retirement accounts, but actually came out slightly positive in my Roth IRA.

Net Worth Performance
Net worth fell by $US4,759 to $US448,556 and in Australian Dollars fell $A1,161 to $A511,233. Non-retirement accounts were at $US237k. Retirement accounts were at $US211k.

Investment Performance



Investment return in US Dollars was -1.72% vs. a 1.08% loss in the MSCI (Gross) World Index, which I use as my overall benchmark and a 0.69% loss in the S&P 500 total return index. Non-retirement accounts lost 2.51%. Returns in Australian Dollars terms were -0.88% and -1.70% respectively. In currency neutral terms the portfolio lost 1.11%,. Summing up the year, we gained 18.35% (USD) vs the MSCI with 12.18% and the SPX with 5.5%. Our non-retirement accounts are up 21.68%. Australian Dollar returns were competitive with the SPX. In currency neutral terms we gain 9.8% for the year.



The contributions of the different investments and trades are as follows:



The returns on all the individual investments are net of foreign exchange movements. Foreign currency gains appear at the bottom of the table together with the sum of all other investment income and expenses - mainly net interest. Trading resulted in some of the biggest losses - QQQQ/NQ and ES. Otherwise, no clear story emerges this month except that EBB.AX and EBI.AX continue to perform poorly.

Progress on Trading Goal

I lost $2,003 in trading . The loss is 6.92% of trading capital. The NDX was down 0.2% for the month. For the year, trading generated $9,749 or a gain of 35% vs. an NDX gain of 18.4%. So in the end I beat the market, but with a lot more risk and volatility.

Asset Allocation
Using the simple method of adding up the betas of each individual investment weighted by their portfolio allocation, at the end of the month the portfolio had an estimated beta of 0.47. Using a regression on the last 36 months of returns gives a beta of 0.81 to the MSCI or 0.60 to the SPX. Alphas are 0.55% and 6.44% respectively. A more sophisticated time series method yields a beta of 0.97 and alpha of 7.6% for the MSCI index. The extra beta generated by these methods is due to the correlation between equity returns and the Australian Dollar in recent times as a result of the "carry trade".

Allocation was 29% in "passive alpha", 66% in "beta", 6% allocated to trading, 3% to industrial stocks, 7% to liquidity, 3% to other assets (including our car which is equal to 2.8% of net worth) and we were borrowing 14%. Our currency exposures were roughly 60% Australian Dollar, 30% US Dollar, and 10% Other (mainly global equity funds).