Let's Talk About: Year in Review
We're going to 10-15% cash by end of year, just to have some buying power if something goes haywire in the next 6 months.
In 40 years I never saw returns like we had this year. Our municipal bond portfolios are up over 7%, our 60/40 portfolios up 25% and straight Equities up 30%.
What did we do special. Absolutely nothing except follow a few simple rules. We own the S&P 500 now going on 10 years, so 80% of our exposure will do what the markets do (simple). We own 20% in some funds that have performed a little better than the market, hence the slight out-performance. Our bonds, closed end funds, and fixed income in general rallied as the 10 yr bond closed last year over 3% and now is around 1.82%. We don't own commodities, international, emerging markets, again keeping it simple. I didn't lose sight that last year was somewhat flat, so our two year return annualized is about 11% (good reason not to look at YTD returns as they can, like this year, be skewed).
We're going to 10-15% cash by end of year, just to have some buying power if something goes haywire in the next 6 months. I do this from time to time, usually I'm wrong, but after such a good year, I believe it's warranted.
We've bought some real estate stocks in the last couple of weeks, mostly rental properties.