April 2013 Moominvalley Report

Yes, I haven't posted anything since last month's report, but I didn't post much on my professional blog either. It's been a busy time - teaching and everything else... Now starting to plan trips for June and July. I've booked a trip to Canada and the US. Will be in Ontario and Virginia in the first week of June. I'll be back in Australia for 10 days and then heading for Spain and Middle East/Africa. It will be my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa - I have been to Tunisia before - with two new countries to add to the visited list. I have a guidebook with a picture of giraffes on the cover right next to me as I am typing this.

Another up month... In USD terms it is the 11th up month. In AUD and currency neural terms we were down a little last month though. We yet again hit new net worth highs in both Australian and US Dollar terms of $A8889k (+$A31k) and $US923k (+$US28k).

Our rate of return was 1.97% in USD terms versus 2.92% for the MSCI and 1.93% for the S&P500. US stock markets were very strong and the Australian stock market relatively weak. In Australian Dollar terms we gained 2.52%. All asset classes gained apart from small cap Australian stocks (-2.62%). The best performing asset class was large cap Australian stocks (+3.32%). The monthly accounts (in US Dollars) look like this:



Non-investment income was a bit above normal and spending was the high side. Snork Maiden was traveling in North America. Total investment returns were $17k with USD returns suffering from the rising US Dollar. Saving in the table is saving from non-investment income.We saved almost $8k from our salaries not counting the retirement contributions of $4k. The latter were inflated, by a third payment this month from Snork Maiden's employer - all salary and other payments are paid every two weeks in Australia.