The time in the market portfolio – November 2017 update

It’s spreadsheet weekend guys!

I’m always excited when I get a chance to update my spreadsheets, whether it be my portfolio or dividend. In fact, I’ve spent the last few days thinking about how I want to update both spreadsheets for the next year. I’ll likely create brand new spreadsheets in the next few months as the data on both current spreadsheets isn’t very well organized now that I have almost two years of data tracked.

That’s how cool I am, I spend my weekends pondering and being excited about updating spreadsheets. I already have some ideas for making them all better and I’ll have more time to do so now that work is slowing down. The fact that it’s freezing outside already will also give me ample time to do so since I go out a lot less during winter.

The portfolio is getting closer to 500k and I the S&P 500 was positive again this month with a 1.24% which means good things for my portfolio.

We’re well into Q3 earnings season and results have been pretty good which bodes well for the bull market’s legs.

For those keeping track, my portfolio has had 13 consecutive months of growth and 7 of those months have grown by more than 10k. That’s the sort of thing that’ll happen in a bull market as growth has definitely outpaced any contributions I’ve made this year.

The last update had my portfolio total at $459,952.98 so let’s take a look at where it sits today.

My portfolio now sits at $471,818.58!

My savings rate in recent months hasn’t been too stellar but the market keeps surging forward which has meant great things for my portfolio. Based on my Q3 goal review, my contributions through September were about 23k and while that number is a bit higher now, it’s clear that market growth has been the primary driver of my returns here.

I’m up over 100k since 12/11/2016. My total then was just north of 366k and I’m nearing 500k now!

This makes it 14 straight months of growth with 8 of them being above 10k as this month added to both.

It was a great month to month on a dollar basis with an $11,865 increase which is 2.58% in growth. That’s a good deal above the S&P return of 1.24%.

Contributions are a part of that but the main driver of the great returns was the performance of my individual stocks. UNH, my largest individual holding was up nearly 9% this month after stellar earnings. Some smaller holdings had great results as well such as Apple which was up nearly 12%. One of the recent purchase I wrote about recently, MSG was also up nearly 10%.

My taxable accounts where I keep my individual holdings were up 5.5% this month.

My tax-advantaged accounts were up 1.7%.

Cash was down about 2% as I used money to try to fill some gaps in my asset allocation and now makes up 5.9% of my overall portfolio.

This was another solid month and if the market keeps chugging along like this then I’ll be hitting 500k in the next few months which will be pretty cool to see!

I think the big jumps in my individual stock holdings will cause some asset allocation issues so let’s take a look at that.

Bonds and REITs were what I targeted last month and both have improved this month. Large cap is a bit high as expected and has driven some of the other asset classes lower.

Here’s the breakdown of each asset class versus the target.

• US Large Cap at 43.28 versus 42.5% target(+0.78%)
• US Mid Cap at 9.89% versus 10% target(-0.11%)
• US Small Cap at 9.82% versus 10% target(-0.18%)
• US REIT at 9.71% versus 10% target(-0.29%)
• International Developed at 14.89% versus 15% target(-0.11%)
• International Emerging at 5% versus 5% target(+0.00%)
• US Bonds at 7.41% versus 7.5% target(-0.09%)

Large cap killed everything in terms of return this month so the leap ahead and push various asset classes below target. REITs are still the furthest away from target as their performance this year has lagged the market in part due to rising interest rates.

There’s nothing here that’s too far out of whack and the plan is to fix it via contributions.

That means the plans for next month is as follows.

• Contributions flow into REITs, small cap, mid cap, international developed and bonds in that order

I may keep an eye out for some individual securities in those areas to see if any values have emerged with the latest round of earnings. Otherwise, money will continue to flow into index funds like usual. It’s not an exciting choice but it works!

It’s cool to see another big month of growth and I’m excited for the next few months to see if I can hit the 500k milestone! These bigger numbers are a good boost to my motivation as well and get me excited about boosting my savings rate to get there faster!

I’ve got a couple of good posts planned for the next few weeks including one that relates to these portfolio updates as I want to revisit my asset allocation and see if I’m still comfortable with it or whether I want to make any changes.

That’s it for this month. How was the latest month for your portfolio?  Were your results as good as mine and are you on the cusp of any milestones?