Taking Stock: Jan 2013

First month of 2013 is done - and what a month it was! Stocks did pretty well. My stocks did pretty well and I feel good about my investment decisions. Here is where things stand at the end of Jan - in the usual Taking Stock format:

Total Portfolio Value: 48.4 Units

Van Gogh: 12 Units. My largest account is currently sporting a 15% Bonds and 85% Stocks asset allocation. I have reduced my bonds holdings in anticipation of the coming bond crash. Bond holdings are equally distributed between long term treasuries, long term investment grade bonds and developing countries bonds. The 85% Stock allocation is divided between developed countries (25%), emerging markets (25%) and US market (35%). US market is further divided into NASDAQ Index (10%), S&P 500 Index (10%) and mid-caps and small caps (15%). This allocation is my stock-heavy allocation since I anticipate stocks to outperform bonds in next 3 months. I will adjust allocation in next rebalancing if I expect the relative performance expectations to change.

Bernini: 11 Units. Hope the professional folks are taking care of this. I am currently budgeting a 3% growth rate in this account. I hope they will prove me wrong.

El Greco: 11 Units. This account is my bet on professional money managers. Currently in a stock-heavy allocation of 10% long term investment grade bonds and 90% stocks. Fidelity Contrafund, Vanguard Wellington and American Euro-Pacific Growth each gets 20%, 20% to Developed Ex-US to bring some geographical diversity and 10% to S&P 500 to absorb the reduction on bond allocation.

Klimt: 4 Units. My safest account - a fixed rate fund that is currently paying close to 5.5%. The bad news is that this yield is going down every month. I will think about shifting this out once (and if) the yield goes below 5%.

Durer: 3 Units. Target Retirement Fund with 2050 target. It is currently 90% Stock (67% US, 23% International) and 10% Bonds. I have an IRA ready to absorb this old 401K account - will do the transition as soon as the current bull run in stocks seem like done. Right now this fund is just tracking stocks and doing quite well.

Bruegel: 3 Units. I have EPI, FXI and INTC here. All are long term holdings for me - all good so far. INTC is a little weak - but with 4.5% dividends - I have no complaints.

Monet: 2 Units. I am holding EWP and F here. Both are on a nice upswing. F took a bit of hit after the numbers last quarter - but is still fine. They are again long term holdings - so who cares - let them mature.

Da Vinci: 2 Units. JNK is showing some weakness along with the rest of the bonds world. This, however, I am going to hold steady. The plan is to just put back the monthly dividend (currently a healthy 6.78%) into JNK and increase the number of shares I have. I am not going to worry about the share price - it will get dollar averaged every month anyways.

Renoir and Turner: 1 Unit each in DEO and VZ. Both doing fine. In addition, I am holding various amounts of DVY in different accounts to hold small sums accumulated through dividends.

Growth Since Last Taking Stock

The Dec 2012 Taking Stock had the total account value at 46.6 Units - so we are looking at a growth of 1.8 Units - 3.86% in a month. A part of the growth is because if new contributions of course. It is likely that we will reach 50 Units of total portfolio value next month - that will be something to celebrate.

Artwork of the day - not really one artwork - but the place that holds Bernini's masterpiece - Santa Maria Della Vittoria Church in Rome. This is of special significance - since I will be visiting Rome soon and will be staying at a hotel right next to this magnificent building.