For the second month of 2024, the DOW gained 846 points. That was another 2% gain for the month. Interest and dividend income was $1860 for the month. Withdrawals for living expenses came to $2500. Expense spending increased because of a $1600 refrigerator that was purchased in February. Overall, my account balance increased by 1.73% from the prior month. In the past month I purchased 100 shares of Investco AI and Next Gen Software ETF (IGPT) and sold 200 shares of Fidelity Consumer Staples ETF (FSTA). I like the large retail holdings in FSTA, and it has a low expense ratio, but I decided to sell after 2 months with a $308 profit. This ETF seems to have trouble getting above $46 per share. It is also impacted by consumer spending which is under pressure right now. FSTA is a nice conservative ETF to watch and acquire if it gets back to the $42 range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I added IGPT because despite having “software” in its name it has several semiconductor companies in its holdings. I can’t afford to buy Nvidia stock, but this ETF’s largest holding is 9.43% NVDA. It also has AMD, Intel, and Micron, among other well-known tech companies. Another ETF that has been doing well for me is the Invesco Semiconductors ETF (PSI). This one has a more equal weighting with 6.22% AMD and 5.50% NVDA. When I want to take on more risk, I usually go with technology and semiconductor companies. This sector has done much better for me than medical and financial companies. I guess it is because I have worked for several large tech companies and know more about that industry than health care and financial businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is looking more likely that interest rates will remain at current levels until late 2024. I would expect to see the first rate cut around October, just prior to the presidential election. Like most people, I am not looking forward to a Trump\/Biden matchup. That’s a choice between someone who is too old and someone who is too corrupt. Not a great choice. I don’t know why Republican voters are not giving Nikki Haley a chance. She seems like a better choice than Trump. She is the only contender willing to stay in the race against Trump. Maybe she’s hoping that they will ban him from running for re-election? All I know is that the only people that will be happy if Trump wins a second term are the leaders of China, Russia, and North Korea. The US needs to elect someone new who has proven experience without a history of corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the second month of 2024, the DOW gained 846 points. That was another 2% gain for the month. Interest and dividend income was $1860 for the month. Withdrawals for living expenses came to $2500. Expense spending increased because of a $1600 refrigerator that was purchased in February. Overall, my<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.budgethomepage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}