Monday, March 03, 2014

Moominvalley February 2014 Report

The Australian Dollar rebounded this month from $US0.8742 to $US0.8933. This depressed gains in net worth in Australian Dollar terms. Stock markets rose strongly. The MSCI World Index rose 4.88%, the S&P 500, 4.57%, and the ASX200 4.97%. We gained 5.49% in US Dollar terms and 3.24% in Australian Dollar terms. So we beat the world markets but not the Australian stock market. Net worth rose $43k to $1.143 million in Australian Dollars and rose $US60k to $US1.021 million. So, we are finally a US Dollar millionaire household! The monthly accounts (in AUD now) follow:


Other income is income not from investments or retirement contributions. It was normal this month at $14.2k. Spending was high this month at $7.6k with $6.8k in core non-work related expenditure. In other words, not including stuff that we will get refunded. As a result, we saved $6.5k from regular income. Retirement contributions were on the high side as we both got a third retirement contribution this month. Pay and retirement contributions are paid here every two weeks in Australia, so some months have three salary payments or retirement contributions. They don't coincide as there is usually a delay with the retirement contributions being paid into the superannuation fund.

We gained $35k on investments. There was a loss due to the rise in the AUD of $2.6k. The main investment gains this month were in large cap Australian stocks, which gained 4.4%. Private equity is the only asset class where we had a loss. I also repurchased shares in Platinum Capital and early in month switch a little money into the CFS Geared Share Fund. Later in the month I rebalanced Snork Maiden's CFS account. So our allocation to large cap Australian stocks and hedge funds increased with the allocation to all other asset classes falling.