Financial Review July 2013

July was a good month for my investments. Net worth increased moderately. High income produced excellent savings and the principal component of my mortgage repayments combined with reasonable gains on my equities and commodities and the impact of a further decline in the AUD was offset by the rise in the NZD.

Here are the details:

1. my Hong Kong equity portfolio appreciated. During the month, there were no new purchases (although Fairwood purchased at the end of June only showed up in July). I hold shares in CMR which is currently suspended following an attack by a short seller alleging fraud. I am currently assuming a 100% loss on this position;

2. my AU/NZ equities appreciated;

3.my ETFs increased in line with the local markets. There were no new purchases;

4. my commodities increased. Silver is my only position which I added to during the month;

5. all of my properties were occupied with all tenants paying on time. Unfortunately, I have a number of minor repair bills which need to be paid, as well as the cost of repainting etc on a change of tenants and the associated agency fee. One property is now debt free;

6. currency movements were positive, with gains in the NZD offsetting losses in the AUD;

7. my position in bonds remains small;

8. there were no open derivative contracts at month end;

9. savings were high with high income and low expenses;

10. there were no transfers to Mrs Traineeinvestor this month.

My cash position rose slightly with money coming in than going out due to new investments. I currently hold 57.02 months of expenses in HKD cash or equivalents. This is above my target floor of 24 months.

For the one month period, my net worth rose by 3.03%. The year to date increase is 5.83%. This means that my investments have lost a small amount money this year. My retirement date has been fixed for 30 September.

Three pay days to go

Okay, so this one is a little late. I am now in my last three months of full time work and there isn't a great deal to report. I have started the course work for my degree (first two assignments have been submitted) and am finding the combination of full time employment (even on less intensive hours than usual),academic study and a small volunteer job to be very intensive. That said, I am really enjoying it all at the moment.

The downside is that I have had less time to focus on my investments than usual. The only material pre-retirement task which is still outstanding is to update my will to reflect the cancellation of my term life insurance.

Mentally, I think that I have gotten used to the idea that there won't be any more pay cheques after I get paid for September.

Silver purchased

This morning I added a few more ounces of silver to the portfolio. I primarily view this as a diversifier (and, just possibly, something of a contrarian investment at this  time). I paid HKD 155.50 per oz for the additional silver (about USD19.98).

Fairwood pruchased

Last Friday I placed buy orders for small incremental quantities of some of my existing shares at below the then market prices. The idea was that with share prices sometimes swinging quite widely on a daily basis, there might be an opportunity to pick up some shares at good prices. The only bit that was hit was Fairwood (HK:52) which was sold off a little bit on reaction to a results announcement. The additional shares cost HK$16.00 each.