The Conservative Portfolio jumped 2.65% in September.
The rebound continues. How time flies. It almost seems like years ago – not a mere six months – that the financial world was crashing down around us. If this continues we’ll be setting new records in how quickly bad times can be fixed by merely reinflating new bubbles. The real estate bubble took a few years to pull us out of the tech bubble / Nasdaq crash.
Speaking of the Nasdaq, tech stocks continued to perform well with the tech heavy index delivering a solid 5.64% gains in September. The Dow’s 2.44% return and S&P 500’s 3.73% gain seem ordinary by comparison. Our model portfolios ranged from 2.05% to 4.07% for the month.
Interest rates went back down, pushing longer term government bonds up just over 2% for the month. While the total bond market gained around 1%, junk bonds remained where the action was as investors piled into riskier debt.
Bill Gross beat the bond market with a 1.59% return in the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX) as he is likely taking a little more risk than the market as a whole right now. We would not be surprised to see him cut back on some of the riskier debt.
Healthcare stocks slowed last month with a mere 0.62% gain for HealthCare Select SPDR (XLV), which is still slightly better than the loss we saw in biotech stocks last month.
Vanguard Telecom Service ETF (VOX) reversed the recent weak course with a sharp move up. The ETF jumped 8.10% in September.
Junk bonds continued to rise once again, beating most stocks. Metropolitan West High Yield Bond (MWHYX) was up 4.76% in September. This category is fast losing appeal to us. To give you an idea how irrational this recent move up has been, we bought this fund in some of our portfolios in the summer of 2008 before the really sharp crash in junk bonds and the fund is up 16.19% since that date (and up far more since the bottom).
The Aggressive Portfolio jumped 3.07% in September.
The rebound continues. How time flies. It almost seems like years ago – not a mere six months – that the financial world was crashing down around us. If this continues we’ll be setting new records in how quickly bad times can be fixed by merely reinflating new bubbles. The real estate bubble took a few years to pull us out of the tech bubble / Nasdaq crash.
Speaking of the Nasdaq, tech stocks continued to perform well with the tech heavy index delivering a solid 5.64% gains in September. The Dow’s 2.44% return and S&P 500’s 3.73% gain seem ordinary by comparison. Our model portfolios ranged from 2.05% to 4.07% for the month.
Interest rates went back down, pushing longer term government bonds up just over 2% for the month. While the total bond market gained around 1%, junk bonds remained where the action was as investors piled into riskier debt.
Healthcare stocks slowed last month with a mere 0.62% gain for HealthCare Select SPDR (XLV), which is still slightly better than the loss we saw in biotech stocks last month.
Bill Gross beat the bond market with a 1.59% return in the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX) as he is likely taking a little more risk than the market as a whole right now. We would not be surprised to see him cut back on some of the riskier debt.
September 2009 Performance Review
The Conservative Portfolio jumped 2.65% in September.
The rebound continues. How time flies. It almost seems like years ago – not a mere six months – that the financial world was crashing down around us. If this continues we’ll be setting new records in how quickly bad times can be fixed by merely reinflating new bubbles. The real estate bubble took a few years to pull us out of the tech bubble / Nasdaq crash.
Speaking of the Nasdaq, tech stocks continued to perform well with the tech heavy index delivering a solid 5.64% gains in September. The Dow’s 2.44% return and S&P 500’s 3.73% gain seem ordinary by comparison. Our model portfolios ranged from 2.05% to 4.07% for the month.
Interest rates went back down, pushing longer term government bonds up just over 2% for the month. While the total bond market gained around 1%, junk bonds remained where the action was as investors piled into riskier debt.
Bill Gross beat the bond market with a 1.59% return in the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX) as he is likely taking a little more risk than the market as a whole right now. We would not be surprised to see him cut back on some of the riskier debt.
Healthcare stocks slowed last month with a mere 0.62% gain for HealthCare Select SPDR (XLV), which is still slightly better than the loss we saw in biotech stocks last month.
Vanguard Telecom Service ETF (VOX) reversed the recent weak course with a sharp move up. The ETF jumped 8.10% in September.
Junk bonds continued to rise once again, beating most stocks. Metropolitan West High Yield Bond (MWHYX) was up 4.76% in September. This category is fast losing appeal to us. To give you an idea how irrational this recent move up has been, we bought this fund in some of our portfolios in the summer of 2008 before the really sharp crash in junk bonds and the fund is up 16.19% since that date (and up far more since the bottom).
The Aggressive Portfolio jumped 3.07% in September.
The rebound continues. How time flies. It almost seems like years ago – not a mere six months – that the financial world was crashing down around us. If this continues we’ll be setting new records in how quickly bad times can be fixed by merely reinflating new bubbles. The real estate bubble took a few years to pull us out of the tech bubble / Nasdaq crash.
Speaking of the Nasdaq, tech stocks continued to perform well with the tech heavy index delivering a solid 5.64% gains in September. The Dow’s 2.44% return and S&P 500’s 3.73% gain seem ordinary by comparison. Our model portfolios ranged from 2.05% to 4.07% for the month.
Interest rates went back down, pushing longer term government bonds up just over 2% for the month. While the total bond market gained around 1%, junk bonds remained where the action was as investors piled into riskier debt.
Healthcare stocks slowed last month with a mere 0.62% gain for HealthCare Select SPDR (XLV), which is still slightly better than the loss we saw in biotech stocks last month.
Bill Gross beat the bond market with a 1.59% return in the Harbor Bond fund (HABDX) as he is likely taking a little more risk than the market as a whole right now. We would not be surprised to see him cut back on some of the riskier debt.