Picking up Nickels

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

March 2019 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on March 12th, 2019:


Asset Feb
2019
Mar
2019
Change
Checking 1,683 2,620 937
Money Market 56,792 50,361 -6,431
Savings Bonds 155,850 156,149 299
Treasury Bills 10,000 15,000 5,000
CDs 57,810 57,977 167
Brokerage 172,428 177,764 5,336
401k 175,947 183,217 7,270
Roth IRA 149,333 153,463 4,130
SEP IRA 749,409 769,998 20,589
529 Savings 173,596 175,815 2,219



Total Assets $1,702,848 $1,742,364 $39,516
   
 
2.32%


The market has been on the upswing since the last update, with the S&P 500 rising 3.02% during that time:

(chart courtesy of nasdaq.com)

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for February fell to 3.8%, with an anemic 20,000 new jobs created. Oil prices are up a bit to the $57 level, which has translated locally to unleaded regular gasoline prices rising about 5ยข per gallon. And in a similar vein to the rise of auto loan delinquencies mentioned last month, student loan delinquencies are showing a similar alarming trend pointing to a slowing economy.

On the financial front, my assets have once again hit another all-time high, surpassing the previous high from September 2018. I think that is interesting considering that the S&P 500 is down ~3% since then. I have also continued to roll my maturing 28 day T-Bills into new ones with an investment rate of 2.450%. I'm still waiting for my individual tax returns to be completed before making a 2018 Roth IRA contribution, but I am proud to say that I was able to convince my children to make their own Roth IRA contributions based on 2018 earnings from their part time jobs. Another financial experiment I have started is donating shares of appreciated stock directly to charity as part of a tax-savings strategy. My first attempt will be gifting a small amount of shares to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital directly from my Vanguard brokerage account, with more to follow if the process is fairly straightforward and works well.

As for the non-financial, it's been a pleasure to see the snow melting and later evening sunsets courtesy of Daylight Savings Time. Bring on the warm weather!