Monthly Review - May 2008

Although my net worth showed a decent increase for the month this was a case of a substantial bonus from my employment offsetting losses on the investment front.

As a group, my mark to market investments declined by small amounts. Those small declines were partly offset by a very small net gain on the comodities and the net income from my properties and slightly increased by adverse currency movements.

Here are the details:

1. my actively managed funds declined. All of them. I currently have investments in actively managed funds investing in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Eastern Small Companies and European Small Companies. The MERs are far too high and I will not be adding to these positions;

2. my equity also declined in value. I currently have exposure to Hong Kong and India;

3. my residual equity portfolio was almost unchanged;

4. my commodity investments showed a slight gain during the month. I continue to hold a commodity ETF and lean hogs and nickel ETCs. I made a small profit on a trade in silver during the month;

5. my properties are all fully rented and tenants are paying the rent on time. I have both a positive cash flow and a surplus of income over expenses (which represents an increase in net worth). The cash flow and the surplus have benefited from recent cuts in interest rates although my view is that interest rates have reached bottom (or so close as makes no different);

6. currency movements were adverse (the USD recovered some of its losses), but only marginally.

The only investment made this month was a short term trade in silver which showed a small profit.My income was significantly boosted by the receipt of a bonus this month. My spending was low (about as low as I could reasonably expect). The resulting savings helped to boost the effects of gains on my investments. The end result was an increase in net worth of 2.1% for the month. The year to date increase is 7.4%.