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 5¢ 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!