March 2009 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on March 10th, 2009:

Asset	Feb 2009	Mar 2009	Change
Checking	337	579	242
Money Market	34,182	20,233	-13,949
Savings Bonds	15,135	15,198	63
Treasury Bills	0	0	0
CDs	103,787	118,212	14,425
Brokerage	77,770	67,692	-10,078
401k	58,002	51,921	-6,081
Roth IRA	24,761	22,417	-2,344
SEP IRA	134,758	134,257	-501
529 Savings	30,211	27,781	-2,430
Total Assets	$478,943	$458,290	-$20,653
			(-4.31%)

Investors continue to suffer as the S&P 500 index has dropped 13.00% since the last update:

(chart courtesy of msn.com)

Unemployment continues to rise and is now up to 8.1%. The stock market did rally a bit yesterday though as a internal memo from Citibank gave some hope that banking sector may be showing some signs of recovery. I sure hope so...

Moneywise, I rolled my maturing 7 month Bank of America CD @ 4.11% APY into a 9 month Bank of America Risk Free CD @ 2.50% APY as rates on many online savings accounts have plummeted below 2%. I'm also considering putting a few bucks into I Bonds next month, which would have roughly a 3% tax equivalent return over the next year (a 5.64% rate for the first six months and likely 0% over the next 6 months with a negative inflation component).

Business-wise, I have fully funded my 2008 SEP IRA contributions and have finished up with my 2008 tax returns for my S Corp. I'm also working on a contract extension with my largest client, so I'll hopefully continue to bring in consulting revenue throughout 2009 and not have to tap into my cash reserves.