How was your January?

[bosco]

This is no doubt a dum question. I'm just starting out on this board and tracking to FIRE. Plus I'm no math wizard.

How are you calculating your increases in assets? Do you track the percentages month to month?
And should you?

As a newbie, any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks.

(Value on Jan 31 divided by Value on Dec 30) minus 1 expressed as a percentage

this assumes you have not put money in during the month. If you have, the calculation is a bit more complicated, although many investment brokers have websites that will figure it out for you.

As for whether or not you should bother--probably not. One month is really not a relevant timeframe. It's mostly about bragging and testosterone

 

[ladelfina]

Having a bit less testosterone than others on this board (one hopes), I guess I was just intrigued. I'd never looked at a monthly number before, but it's pretty easy to do in Quicken: just pick the ROI report and set the time-frame, then have it sub-total by month. It takes the beginning and ending values, adding in any dividends received. At least, that's what I used.

It is a pretty silly exercise, not only because it won't tell you much about the past or the future.. it doesn't take into account the fact that some of your investments may have quarterly or semi-annual dividends or interest payments that may or may not show up in that particular month and skew things.. it's really only worth looking year-to-year.

 

[Andre1969]

I think it's fun sometimes to look at a month's rate of return, especially if it's been a good month. Of course, you always have to remember that just because you had a good month, it doesn't mean the whole year will extrapolate out to that same percentage. For example, if you had a 4% gain in January, that doesn't mean you're going to have a 4% gain every month thereafter...factor in compounding and that would be about a 60% rate of return!

And of course, looking at a monthly return when you had a bad month is never fun.

 

[rmark]

Warm, dry, lots of grasss fires

 

[tryan]

I have no idea ... I am not looking at the wad until June.

Once I start looking at monthly swings, daily is next.  And I can't go there (as I'll start acting on the info).

 

[justin]

Up a little over 6.5%. I was sort of surprised it was that high. Must be my uncanny ability to pick the hottest, most high performing diversified basket of index funds. 8) Or dumb luck.

I'm sort of hoping stocks go on sale since I'm still in the accumulation phase.

 

[HFWR]

My bad...

I watch CNBC, and look longingly at my port quite often, but for now I'm reasonably well diversified, and have 10% cash for some bargain shopping, so I'm standing pat!!

Until I don't..

 

[CybrMike]

You guys suck. Until today i was up only 1.5%. 5% would have been my entire years expenses...lol.

60% equities (20% international, 40% domestic). 40% Income (Bonds, ADVDX, TIPS).

 

[HFWR]

Never fear...

Haven't looked today - see, I can do it - but I think I'm no longer at 6%...

 

[Tom57]

3.17%

 

[Cb]

How are you calculating your increases in assets? 
As a newbie, any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks.

Just think of a number that doesn't sound too fake, like maybe 5.63%, or 6.08%, something like that.

Cb, up 4.849% YTD

 

[retire@40]

January ROI = 4.88% (annualized)