Posted by For the month of April, the DOW lost 1841 points. My investments decreased by 4.16% during the month. YTD my investments are down 8%. Interest and dividend income was $1,322 this month. Withdrawals for living expenses came to $801 for the past month. I am a little late posting this update because of some computer trouble and health issues. It is almost mid-May and the stock market is worse now than it was two weeks ago. The DOW is down 6.5% in the last 4 weeks and 12% for the year. I sold FAF despite their good dividend, because I felt that interest rates will eventually start impacting the housing market. I bought ROKU, FTLX and QCLN just because they are so beaten down and will eventually recover. There are a lot of oversold stocks right now, but everyone is afraid to buy with inflation and interest rates still rising.
It’s hard to look at your portfolio when the market is dropping by 500 to 1000 points for multiple days in a row. This past week I received emails from my investment company and bank telling me that things are not as bad as they seem and historically this is normal. Well, it doesn’t feel normal when you lose 8% of your money in 4 months. Some people have lost a lot more. It would have been worse if I didn’t have 40% of my money in cash. That percentage has increased simply because the value of my stock and bond holdings have decreased so much. The one thing I can still count on is my monthly dividend income. That steady income helps me pay my bills and I don’t worry about the value of the holdings decreasing as much. I know the money I have in cash is also losing value, but it is still not as much as the amount lost in my investments. Once they get inflation under control, things should start to improve financially. But these things often take many months to resolve.