Portfolio Price Update

I thought since the Dow is at historic highs and the markets have been advancing a good deal in the last little while I'd post a mid-period portfolio value update since I don't have a purchase time until December.

I should point out that it's only the Dow that's at a historic high right now. The S&P 500's all-time closing high was 1,527.46, recorded on March 24, 2000 (at the time, it was quite obviously -- in hindsight -- overvalued and subsequently lost almost half of its value) and it closed at 1,402.81, which is still 8% lower than the high; the NASDAQ at 2,454.84 is nowhere near its all-time intraday high of 5,132.52. The reason this is relevant is that the S&P 500 is the most relevant index for a value investor to watch, followed by the NASDAQ composite index, because the Dow stocks are from such big and prominent companies that they are already pretty fairly valued by the market. Dow components get closest to the ideal that everything known about a company is already built into its stock price. Hence, Dow stocks are unlikely to be bargains. Ergo you wouldn't buy them and therefore you wouldn't watch the index, either!

My portfolio is currently priced by the market at $53,486.63. I paid (minus fees) $50,015.44 for it and this is an increase of $3,471.19 or 6.94% to date. To date, the index increases are:

• Dow: 11,278.7695 -> 12,321.59: up 9.2%.
• S&P 500: 1,309.93 -> 1,402.81: up 7.1%.
• NASDAQ composite: 2,370.8799 -> 2,454.84: up 3.5%.

My portfolio is, tragically, lagging both S&P and Dow.