July 2007 Report

This is my net worth and investment performance report for July. All figures are in US Dollars unless otherwise stated. This month saw the first negative investment performance in 10 months (in USD terms), bad trading results, and a small decline in net worth.

Income and Expenditure



Expenditure was $2,113 - this month there were no moving expenses. Current non-investment income mainly consisted of a refund from the IRS. I'm no longer receiving a salary or making retirement contributions. Non-retirement accounts lost $1797 but would have lost $3923 if it were not for the continued lift from the Australian Dollar. Retirement accounts gained $288. I've introduced a new entry this month: "retirement tax credits". As I've explained, I measure all investment performance on a pre-tax basis including my Australian supperannuation account. Unlike US retirement accounts the returns on Australian retirement accounts are taxed at source but at a concessional rate. In order to compute the actual gain in my superannuation account after tax to get the change in net worth I need to take out the tax paid. This month the account lost in Australian Dollar terms so the tax adjustment is negative.

Net Worth Performance
Net worth fell by $US356 to $US444,932 and in Australian Dollars lost $A6615 to $A517,784. Non-retirement accounts were at $US244k. Retirement accounts were close to $US201k.

Investment Performance
Investment return in US Dollars was -0.34% vs. a 1.50% loss in the MSCI (Gross) World Index, which I use as my overall benchmark and a 3.17% loss in the S&P 500 index. Non-retirement accounts lost 0.73%. Returns in Australian Dollars terms were -1.48% and -1.91% respectively.



The S&P 500 is barely beating a savings account so far this 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. I can't see any patterns at all in these results - the best gains and worst losses both came from futures trading.

Progress on Trading Goal.

Asset Allocation
At the end of the month the portfolio had a beta of 0.59. Allocation was 34% in "passive alpha", 64% in "beta", 6% allocated to trading, 6% to industrial stocks, 6% to liquidity, and I was borrowing 16%. My Australian Dollar exposure was steady at 62% from 69.5% in January.