Portfolio Update July 1

Wow, half the year has gone.  It is time to take a look at our investment portfolio, analyze it and decide if any changes are needed.

Vanguard:

We have Roth IRAs invested in Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund, plus regular IRAs and a taxable account that we tranferred to Vanguard from a financial advisor.  The advisor had us in a large number of mutual funds, and the cost to sell each one is $20 per account; therefore we have not been in a hurry to sell them.  We did move out of the worst performing ones late last year and we just analyzed what was left. We have several funds that are significantly underperforming their associated index and if that continues at the end of the year, they will be on the chopping block.  After anaylzing everything we did decide we were overexposed in US stocks and so we sold some of our S&P 500  fund and bought Vanguard's index funds for international bonds and for international stocks.  Overall, these accounts are up 5.23% this year. 

One of the things a lot of people track is the income generated by their portfolio.  So far this year, this portfolio has generated $2788 in dividends and capital gains.  I expect that amount to rise as we have increased the bond percentage in our portfolio from about 25% to about 30%.  My husband is 60 and I am 55; we are getting to the point that we need more stability and income in our portofolio.

My 401(k):

My 401K was invested 25% in MFS Agressive Growth Allocation Fund A, 25% in Franklin Total Return Fund A and 25% in Janus Triton, with 12.5% each in MFS Growth Fund-A and Delaware US Growth Fund A.  For the first six months of the year, the YDT performance was 1.77% which is lower than my other investments.  

I decided to re-allocate and now I have 38% MFS Government Securities Fund A, 20% Janus Triton, 19% Oppenheimer International Small Mid Co A, 11% Delaware US Growth Fund A and 12% Pioneer Fundamental Growth Fund A

For the first six months of the year, my dividends, capital gains and other earnings (as opposed to increases in share value) totalled $1,647.85.  I expect that to increase in the next six months due to the increased bond holdings.

Motif Investing:

This was a toy for me to play with.  Motif Investing allows you to invest in up to 30 different companies at one time, for one fee.  You can either assemble your own group (Motif) or buy one of theirs.  Once you own the stocks, you can sell them one at a time, or you can sell the whole motif for only one fee.  The motif I developed isn't doing very well--my $1000 is down to $960, though I have collected some dividends.  Overall, I invested $7,000.  My portfolio is worth $7223.69 and over the last few months I have transferred $320 in dividend income to Loyal3.  So far in 2016, I have earned $105.31 in dividends at Motif, for a yearly yield of about 3%.  If you want to invest via Motif, use this link and we both get $100.

Loyal3:

I started investing with Loyal3 as an incentive to bring lunch from home rather than to buy it from the lunch counter in my building.  I got tired of that, but have used the account as a place to invest the dividends I got from Motif.  Through Loyal3, which is a no-fee stockbroker, I own stock in AMC Theaters, Alibaba, Disney, Hershey, Intel, Kohls, Target, TimeWarner, Unilever and VF Corp.  So far, I've broken even; AMC, Hershey, Intel and Unilever are up, the others are down.  My $630 investment has garnered me $5.91 in dividends for an annual yield of about 2%.

Prosper:

So far this year we added $300 in new money to this account and we transferred $550 from Kickfurther to Prosper.  Our XIRR return on this account is 11.48%. Prosper shows my seasoned returns to be $12.85%.

Lending Club:

I'm not liking all the things I've been reading about the corporate troubles Lending Club has so I haven't wanted to invest more money with them.  I haven't pulled any out, but I'm thinking about it.  Right now my account value is $19,791.89 and my adjusted account value (Lending Club computes a hypothetical value based on the number of late notes and how late they are) of $19,173.84.  The increase is only $313 so far this year.

Kickfurther:  

Kickfurther says my profit since the inception of the accout is $382.17.  However, they have yet to subtract anything from that for bad debts.  They paid me for the first four bad deals I had, in the amount of about $175.  Right now I have about $260 in deals that aren't paying.  Some I think have some recovery potential--KF has indicated that it has the inventory and I personally think the inventory will sell at some price (bamboo kitchen drawer organizers and silk comforters); the others I suspect won't give us much if anything, but hopefully I'm wrong.  Bottom line, for in investment of about $2500 made in dribs and drabs, mostly from June-Dec 2015, there is a real possibility that the value of the investment is a $20-50 loss, if you consider the $175 that KF refunded me to be a loss, along with my predicted loss from the deals I have that aren't paying.  The real questioin is how much value can KF get out of the bad deals; and at this time we haven't seen evidence they can get any.  However, they have a legal team working on it now. I think Kickfurther has potential; I'm just not sure the pricing is right on it.  If you want to try it, use my link and you get $5.00 toward your first investment.  

*Part of Financially Savvy Saturdays on brokeGIRLrich, A Disease Called Debt and One More Broke Twenty-Something* http://diseasecalleddebt.com/extreme-saving-no-new-clothes/ 1. How We Avoided Buying New Clothes for a Whole Year http://brokegirlrich.com/the-little-costs-of-friendship/ 2. The Little Costs of Friendship http://familymoneyplan.com/interview-brokegirlrich/ 3. Behind the Screen Interview #7