Portfolio Price Update

A few days late -- a most important visitor took precedence over fake stocks and, well, pretty much everything for a few weeks -- the monthly portfolio price update. Between my previous purchases and now, the Dow and other major indices took a pretty serious plunge (the DJIA closed down around 400 points one day and kept falling).

Although the markets have recovered a bit since then, there may be some big drops ahead because of the reason behind the last drops. The markets always react to dangers that are relatively visible years in advance after the fact. In this case, it was a partial popping of what has been dubbed the "debt bubble" (in the form of lender bankruptcees ) that did it. Given the extensive levels of indebtedness in Canada and the US and the fact that many lenders that are still, theoretically, "alive" and "well", have pursued very unbusinesslike lending practices, there may be more to come.

My portfolio currently costs $80,283.99. I paid (minus fees) $71,571.03 for it and this is an increase of $8,712.96 or 12.2% to date. Since the start, index changes are:

• Dow: 11,278.7695 -> 12,481.01: up 10.7%.
• S&P 500: 1,309.93 -> 1,436.11: up 9.6%.
• NASDAQ composite: 2,370.8799 -> 2,448.93: up 3.3%.

While we're still beating the averages, this portfolio definitely has higher volatility than the markets as a whole and the Dow's list of 30 blue chips. This isn't at all unexpected. Although theoretical return has ticked down about 4-and-a-half percentage points, the Dow's return is down 2-and-a-half, the S&P 1.5, and the NASDAQ's 2 percent since the last price update.