April 2007 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

Another month has concluded and it’s time to take a look how we did in April.

April is very solid month in general as the markets regained momentum after all the volatilities we experienced in late February and early March. It has been a record setting month (except the last day) for the Dow as the index gained 708.56 points, or 5.74%. For the month, the NASDAQ added 103.45 points, or about 4.27%, while S&P increased 61.51 points, good for a 4.33% gain.

Whenever the markets cooperates, we can expect a healthy gain of our net worth and April is no exception. At the end of March, we had a total of $482,123 in net worth. That number increased to $504,034 as of yesterday, a gain of 4.55% from previous month, matching the performance of the overall markets.

A breakdown of the number looks like the following:

• Credit card balance: There was almost no change in our credit balance as we only managed to reduce $205 from previous month to $60,194. That’s a mere 0.34%. Though the overall number seems very high, most of the balance, more than $58,000, came from 0% balance transfers. Not much to worry about. Our discretionary spending in April was around $2,000.
• Cash: The decrease of $9,478, or 10.57%, in our cash was largely due to the shift from cash to of T-bills in April. At the end of the month, we have a total of $80,192 in several bank accounts. The seemingly large amount of cash has some thing to with the $32,000 0% BT from BoA I got last month, which is currently in the HSBC account. Also the checks of nearly $4,000 of taxes that we owned haven’t been cashed yet.
• Taxable accounts: Our regular investment accounts saw an addition of $8,948, or 4.07%, in April, mainly from price appreciation. We also contributed around $1,000 to our mutual funds and DRIP investments. As before, China Life Insurance (LFC) continued to be a major contributor as its price increased by nearly $3.50 per share for the month. The number could have been even better had LFC not lost $2.00 in the last two trading sessions. Our assets in taxable accounts are at $229,055 on April 30, 2007.
• Retirement accounts: In April, our 401(k)s and IRAs grew by $9,059 to $211,695. That’s a gain of about 4.7%. The biggest change in our retirement accounts last month was that we had to withdraw almost all the $4,000 we made in 2006 due to excess contribution. We plan to convert part of our Roth IRAs to non-deductible Traditional IRAs so we can still enjoy the tax-deferred growth of the money instead of taking out cash.
• 529 plans: Our daughter’s 529 plans rose by $624 or 9.1% in April to reach $7,487. As I noticed, it kind of became a pattern that the 529 plans are always the biggest gainer, exceeding investments percentage wise. I didn’t really do anything to those accounts except making $300 contribution every month, but they are doing quite well, given the time I spent on them.
• Bonds: The change of $12,100 in our bond investments all came from new money. I may need to bump up T-bill purchases even more this month as the 6.0% APR promotion at HSBC expires. Also with the new I-bond rate coming out this month, it’s possible that I add some more I-bonds to our holdings, depending on the rates. On April 30th, the bond investments are at $35,797.

Year-to-date, our net worth has grown at a rate of 9.81%, from $458,993 on January 1, 2007 to $504,034 on May 1, 2007.

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