The portfolio as a whole has been essentially flat, up just .022%. Stocks were weak this month, but this portfolio has a mere 25% stock position, and that in safer value type stocks. One large move was a - 4.49% pullback for the Strong Dividend Income fund. Since the fund is only 10% of assets, this didn't destroy the portfolios return. This fund is similar to the Dow Jones Industrial average, which had its worst April in some 30 years, so this is somewhat explainable. Since this is an income focused portfolio, and so few stocks actually pay meaningful dividends at all these days, we're going to stick with this fund and the other higher yielding equity funds in this
Our highest risk core portfolio (daredevil is riskier, but not part of our regular 5 investment portfolios) was, oddly, our strongest performer, up around 1.2% this month. What's supposed to happen is the riskier portfolios do worse in bad months for the stock market, and better when the market does well. With the NASDAQ and S&P500 down almost 10% for the month, you'd expect lousy returns in a portfolio that is 80% stock funds. The portfolio was lead by solid returns in our junk bond, emerging market, international, and micro cap stocks funds. In fact, the only real drag (and it's a doozy) was the Gabelli Global Telecom fund, down an astounding 7.31%. Astounding because telecom stocks are already down around 75% or more from their 2000 highs across the board. April was the first month we even considered entering this class of stocks after ridiculing the valuations for years. Looks like we were a little too early in our contrarian call. What we like is that almost everybody unanimously hates this sector now, which is funny because two years ago this was the most popular sector with growth and concept investors. Another very bad month or two in telecom and we may increase our exposure. We'd probably take the money out of our micro cap index fund but we'll see.
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The portfolio as a whole has been essentially flat, up just .022%. Stocks were weak this month, but this portfolio has a mere 25% stock position, and that in safer value type stocks. One large move was a - 4.49% pullback for the Strong Dividend Income fund. Since the fund is only 10% of assets, this didn't destroy the portfolios return. This fund is similar to the Dow Jones Industrial average, which had its worst April in some 30 years, so this is somewhat explainable. Since this is an income focused portfolio, and so few stocks actually pay meaningful dividends at all these days, we're going to stick with this fund and the other higher yielding equity funds in this
Our highest risk core portfolio (daredevil is riskier, but not part of our regular 5 investment portfolios) was, oddly, our strongest performer, up around 1.2% this month. What's supposed to happen is the riskier portfolios do worse in bad months for the stock market, and better when the market does well. With the NASDAQ and S&P500 down almost 10% for the month, you'd expect lousy returns in a portfolio that is 80% stock funds. The portfolio was lead by solid returns in our junk bond, emerging market, international, and micro cap stocks funds. In fact, the only real drag (and it's a doozy) was the Gabelli Global Telecom fund, down an astounding 7.31%. Astounding because telecom stocks are already down around 75% or more from their 2000 highs across the board. April was the first month we even considered entering this class of stocks after ridiculing the valuations for years. Looks like we were a little too early in our contrarian call. What we like is that almost everybody unanimously hates this sector now, which is funny because two years ago this was the most popular sector with growth and concept investors. Another very bad month or two in telecom and we may increase our exposure. We'd probably take the money out of our micro cap index fund but we'll see.