Market Bounce
Woohoo! Investors can rejoice as March 2016 was one of the best months for the stock market in recent memory. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones gained 6.9% and 7.1% respectively. Even the commodities-heavy S&P/TSX Composite in Canada managed to end the month 4.9% higher than it started. What do all these numbers mean? Well let’s pretend to be architectural drafters for a moment so we can put things in perspective. A broad North American equity index fund portfolio worth $250,000 would have returned about $15,000 during March. That’s not too shabby at all. 🙂
I made a couple of new investments in March, such as buying Air Canada bonds in my RRSP, and adding more Antrim MIC units to my existing holding in my TFSA. In other news, as many people already know, earlier this year Suncor reached a $4.2 billion deal to buy out Canadian Oil Sands. My COS shares were finally tendered in March. This means my 123 COS shares were replaced by 34 new SU shares. 🙂 This brings my total Suncor holding to 200 shares, or $7,200 in market value. Wow that’s a high concentration of money in just one stock. Thankgoodness Suncor is a high quality company. 😀
*Side Incomes:
- Part-Time = $800
- Freelance = $500
- Dividends = $600
- Interest = $200
- Fun = $200
- Debt Interest = $1300
*Net Worth: (MoM)
- Assets: = $948,000 total (+17,400)
- Cash = $2,500 (-5000)
- Stocks CDN =$110,100 (+8100)
- Stocks US = $69,400 (+900)
- RRSP = $69,100 (+6,300)
- Mortgage Funds = $22,900 (+7,100)
- Home = $263,000
- Farms = $411,000
- Debts: = $490,300 total (-4,300)
- Mortgage = $189,600 (-400)
- Farm Loans = $196,400 (-500)
- Margin Loan CDN = $28,400 (-100)
- Margin Loan US = $25,900 (-3,700)
- TD Line of Credit = $21,000 (-600)
- CIBC Line of Credit = $11,000 (+1000)
- HELOC = $18,000
*Total Net Worth = $457,700 (+$21,700 / +4.98%)
All numbers above are in $CDN. Conversion rate used: 1.00 CAD = 0.77 USD
Thanks to the large gains in the markets my net worth almost increased 5%. Furthermore, it’s another month where I earned over $2,000 from side incomes. 🙂 My dividends and interest payments are getting bigger each quarter! But it’s no big deal. All I did was consistently invest in dividend growth stocks and high interest fixed income securities for the past 7 years.
But is this recent market rally sustainable or is it on borrowed time and we’re past due for a correction? I think it doesn’t hurt to be cautious when stocks are trading beyond their fundamentals, so I’m preparing for a potential pull back by keeping some cash around. My immediate plan for April is to save more money, pay down some debt, and fight any urge to buy a new stock that happens to catch my attention. I realized that I should probably divest away from the stock market a bit as it’s taking up too much of my asset allocation.
I’ve been corresponding with a venture capital firm in the U.S. about investing my money in some start-up companies. 😉 I haven’t decided to do anything with this yet, but I think it’s a worthwhile opportunity to explore. Providing seed money for small businesses can have big payoffs with the right management team and execution, but it is also much riskier than investing in the S&P 500.
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Random Useless Fact:
Over $21 000 increased in one month is absolutely amazing man. Keep moving up.
Very soon you will hit half a million dollar net worth.
My net worth increased by $11 000 in March 2016. I didn’t make any purchases in March. Like you, I am sharping my buying power by paying down some debts and waiting for another pull back.
Happy Investing!
Cool beans. We’re both in the 5 figure club for the month of March. I really think there’s a strong probability of a pullback in the later half of this year coming.
Do you mind sharing the venture capital firm you are in contact with? Just curious about minimal investment amount, how the vetting process is, etc
The VC company is called FundersClub. You can invest in single companies as well as multi-company funds that spread out capital across multiple (typically 10 to 15) startups that match a specific investing theme. The minimum investment depends on which startup or fund you go in to. Some start as low as $3,000. But most funds require more. In terms of vetting process, many of the startups they let into their platform are from existing connections they have with people in the angel investing and incubation industry. For example, they work with Y Combinator, a tech incubator in Silicon Valley to find companies with high potential. I’m looking at a few other equity crowd funding services as well like WeFunder and AngelList. There are tons out there apparently. Unfortunately most are in the U.S. I can blog more about this in the future if readers are interested.
It’s amusing to review a 1-month period within the scope of a long-term investment strategy.
Whatever makes a blog tick, eh!
My friend recently mentioned that tracking net worth every month is stupid because it can be very volatile. He recommends calculating net worth only once a quarter or once a year.
That kind of graph profile makes me smile 😀 Smart on ya to expect some upcoming bumps though me thinks – Cheers
Thanks Phil. I’ve noticed more negative financial and economic news in the past 6 months or so. It would be interesting to see how this year plays out especially with the presidential election in the south.
The chart looks amazing. Looks like your set up quite well with this position.
Yup. I’m in it for the long haul.
March was indeed a marvelous month and you results just highlight that fact. Great increase and very nice dividend income too. I think because March was such a strong performing month a lot of our fellow dividend bloggers have cooled on new buys as good values are harder to come by. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve noticed that too. The only sector that might be still worth investing in right now is probably financials. Everything else seems to be fully valued.
What a solid month for you! Congrats on the gains, hopefully uou can keep it up!
That’s the plan. :0)