March 2023 Financial Asset Roundup

Here are my current financial assets as of the market close on March 10th, 2023:

Asset	Feb 2023	Mar 2023	Change
Checking	2,842	1,990	-852
Money Market	62,212	69,250	7,038
Savings Bonds	222,491	224,007	1,516
Treasury Bills	60,000	60,000	0
CDs	43,696	53,792	10,096
Brokerage	303,023	285,873	-17,150
401k	430,252	232,294	-197,958
Roth IRA	234,420	224,467	-9,953
IRA	1,040,383	1,185,492	145,109
529 Savings	164,755	163,667	-1,088
Total Assets	$2,564,074	$2,500,832	-$63,242
			-2.47 %

The S&P 500 has been a bit more volatile of late, falling 5.60% (+0.58% YTD) since the last update. Hopefully last week's bank run and collapse of Silicon Valley Bank aren't a sign of more to come:

(chart courtesy of nasdaq.com)

On the jobs front, the unemployment rate for February rose to 3.6% and remained strong with 311,000 new jobs added. Oil prices pulled back to the $75 level (from $79). That translates to a local regular unleaded gasoline price of $3.08 per gallon at my last fill-up.

On the financial front, I did the usual Fidelity 401k transaction (FSKAX) and Vanguard VTI purchase in my taxable brokerage account. I took the funds from my maturing 13 week T-Bills (4.377%) and rolled $20k into new ones with an investment rate of 4.903%. I also took a distribution from my S Corp and opened a Alliant 5.00% APY 6 month CD to try to get the $100 "FASTPASS" bonus. My ill-advised Penfed 1.00% APY 15 month CD that I should have closed early is also maturing soon, but I'll take those proceeds and use them to fund my 2022 Roth IRA contribution.

The large changes in IRA and 401k balances above also reflect part of the portfolio consolidation and simplification that I have been trying to work on. I initially intended to roll over a previous employer's 401k to my solo 401k (both held at Fidelity), but became frustrated after a few phone calls about how complicated the process was for what was essentially an internal account transfer at the same institution (receive physical check from Fidelity, mail the check back to Fidelity along with a letter of instruction, etc.). At that point, I decided to use the Online Express Rollover option at fidelty.com, which automatically opened a new IRA for me and had all of my 401k funds transferred there the next day. Easy!

My 2022 business tax returns are finally complete along with my final 2022 Solo 401k contribution. Hopefully our personal tax returns and 2022 Roth IRA contributions will also be done soon. Tomorrow is also the release date for the February 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) inflation data, which will get us one data point closer to determining what the new May 2023 I Bond variable rates will look like.

And finally, it looks like we're about to be hit by a pretty good-sized winter storm over the next couple of days. Hopefully we can avoid the heavy snow and storm damage and finally move on to spring weather. I'm really ready for the lawn and gardens to start taking off. :)