Posted by For the eighth month of 2024 the DOW added1,215 points, or about 3%, which is a gain of 10.2% year to date. Interest and dividend income was $1977 for the month. Withdrawals for living expenses came to $1088. Overall, my account balance increased by 1.60% from the prior month. Despite withdrawing almost $10K for living expenses, my investments gained 11.67% in the past year. Less impressive is the 5.74% gain in the past 5 years. Once I started withdrawing money to pay bills, I did not expect that my account balance would ever reach new highs. The key is to take out less every month than what you receive in dividends and interest.
In the past month I purchased 100 shares of JANUS HENDERSON GROUP (JHG) and sold 100 shares of INVESCO AI AND NEXT GEN ETF (IGPT). I had a gain of $232 on IGPT but decided that the ETF was underperforming because it has too many (111) holdings. I used the funds to buy another 50 shares of semiconductor ETF (PSI), which has only 32 holdings. This was right before Nvidia’s earnings report, which didn’t seem to impress investors. PSI has 5.4% of its holdings in Nvidia, so it didn’t make a big difference with all the other great semiconductor companies it holds. Among my holdings, Tilray is still the biggest drag with a 91% loss.
With a September rate cut on the horizon a lot of investors will be looking to buy stocks and bonds. But I’m not in a rush to get out of short-term money market funds. I expect the 1st rate cut will be just .25%. That means instead of 5%, I’ll probably be getting 4.5%, which is still pretty good. I will be looking for opportunities to move some money back into mutual funds. But it is always good to be careful when buying stock funds when the market is at record high levels. We are only a few months away from the presidential election. It sounds like Harris/Walz has a slight edge in the polls. But the election is still too close to call. I’ve heard some positive arguments for Trump vs. Harris. The only positive Harris has going for her is her youth.