Portfolio Price Update

Time for the monthly "State of the Portfolio" address.

If I sold my portfolio at this exact second, I would be paid approximately $72,849. This compares with a purchase price of $62,328.25 (plus fees of $225). This would turn out to be a return on the principal of 16.88%. Over the same period of time, we've seen major US market indices do the following:

• Dow: 11,278.7695 -> 12,767.57: up 13.2%.
• S&P 500: 1,309.93 -> 1,455.54: up 11.1%.
• NASDAQ composite: 2,370.8799 -> 2,496.31: up 5.3%.

If I didn't know better, I'd think the only lesson people learned from the tech bubble burst of 2001 was "don't pay high prices for tech stocks"!! In any case, although a rising tide does lift all boats (so having a portfolio appreciate doesn't necessarily mean much in an advancing market), we're a little ahead of the general market advance right now. I'm due to sell my first group in April, so if I'm luckless there may be a major downturn before then that changes the outlook. We'll see.

It's interesting to see the psychology of securities ownership (even of the fake kind): you see prices go up -- which means nothing other than if you were to sell everything you own right now you'd make some money -- and you want to throw everything you have at the stock market. Luckily for me, everything I have is not that much! Well, maybe not that luckily.

I've decided to post a group-by-group breakdown of my assets since the time at which every purchase period will have both a buy and sell part is approaching.

Group 1: Purchased April 20, 2006

Sym	Purchase	Current	Net Gain $	Net Gain %	Aggregate $
CALL	$4.28	$3.07	($1.21)	-28.27%	$1,673.15
KG	$17.68	$18.69	$1.01	5.71%	$2,448.39
PNCL	$7.00	$19.30	$12.30	175.71%	$6,426.90
SGTL	$8.60	$3.51	($5.09)	-59.19%	$951.21
				23.51%	$11,499.65

Group 2: Purchased June 18, 2006

Sym	Purchase	Current	Net Gain $	Net Gain %	Aggregate $
PPD	$34.20	$39.41	$5.21	15.23%	$3,073.38
ANIK	$10.58	$13.91	$3.33	31.47%	$3,533.14
MOT	$20.08	$19.62	($0.46)	-2.29%	$2,609.46
HNR	$12.38	$9.94	($2.44)	-19.71%	$2,156.89
PWEI	$29.55	$33.19	$3.64	12.32%	$2,987.10
PLAY	$10.10	$13.48	$3.38	33.47%	$3,585.68
				11.76%	$17,946.34

Group 3: Purchased August 20, 2006

Sym	Purchase	Current	Net Gain $	Net Gain %	Aggregate $
HRB	$22.67	$23.55	$0.88	3.88%	$2,566.95
CLMT	$31.00	$44.35	$13.35	43.06%	$3,503.65
FCX	$54.57	$57.76	$3.19	5.85%	$2,656.96
FDG	$30.10	$23.00	($7.10)	-23.59%	$1,866.00
XJT	$6.53	$7.71	$1.18	18.07%	$2,914.38
				9.4%	$13,527.94

Group 4: Purchased October 23, 2006

Sym	Purchase	Current	Net Gain $	Net Gain %	Aggregate $
DLX	$22.06	$32.91	$10.85	49.18%	$3,685.92
ASEI	$49.41	$54.77	$5.36	10.85%	$2,683.73
INTX	$9.32	$11.57	$2.25	24.14%	$3,066.05
CECO	$21.76	$28.88	$7.12	32.72%	$3,263.44
CRYP	$16.62	$23.50	$6.88	41.40%	$3,478.00
				31.73%	$16,177.14

Group 5: Purchased January 16, 2007

Sym	Purchase	Current	Net Gain $	Net Gain %	Aggregate $
UIC	$50.01	$52.61	$2.60	5.20%	$2,577.89
CONN	$23.65	$27.56	$3.91	16.53%	$2,893.80
HGT	$24.05	$24.56	$0.51	2.12%	$2,505.02
WIRE	$21.16	$23.98	$2.82	13.33%	$2,805.66
IPS	$90.75	$107.98	$17.23	18.99%	$2,915.46
				11.25%	$13,697.93

There may be some slight data-entry errors in those tables as I'm not going to waste time triple-checking it, but the general gist of it is correct.