April 2008 Score Card — Part I: Net Worth

After five straight monthly loses, we finally saw some meaningful increase in our paper wealth in April, thanks to a strong showing in the stock markets. Our net worth has suffered huge losses since last November when stocks peaked and started trading lower and lower amid financial market turmoil. In the past five months, our net worth has shrunk more than $116K, largely due to falling stock prices. Though it’s a pain to watch our money evaporated in stock markets, I didn’t make any dramatic change in our investments. I am still holding those once high-flying stocks that have lost some 50% value in a few months. I just kept telling myself to hold on and wait for a rebound. It looks like my patience paid off and that day I have been waiting for finally arrived

On April 30th, our net worth, excluding housing, is at $593,031.81. Comparing to one month ago, we had a net gain of $50,225.11 (9.25%), reclaiming nearly half of the losses! Though I am very happy with the net increase in one month, the total number only put us to where we were between August and September of last year. Still a long way to go, but hopefully this is the beginning of a positive change.

Here’s a quick look at each element in our net worth:

• Credit card balance(-): The total credit card balance at the end of April was $18,449.59, down $593.58 (3.12%) from previous month. Of the total balance, $16,340 is from a 0% APR balance transfer from Citi Driver’s Edge card. Excluding that, we charged nearly $2,100 on our credit cards last month, inline with our monthly spending.
• Cash(-): We have a total of $57,092.30 in a number of bank accounts (mainly in IGoBanking and Bank of America) on April 30. That’s a decrease of $2,769.13 (4.63%) from a month ago. The main reason for the drop is taxes, both federal and state, we paid last month, as well as quarterly contributions to our IRA accounts.
• Taxable accounts(+): As before, here’s where the big gain came from. Last month, stocks and mutual funds we own performed very nicely as broad markets recovered from deep losses in the first quarter. The gain in our investments pushed the total market value of our taxable investments to $284,959.75, a net increase of $37,553.76 (15.18%) from March. Big contributors include China Life Insurance (LFC) which gained $13.54 in a month, and Visa (V), which added $21.09. These two stocks alone contributed more than $22,000 to the overall gain. Last month, I also bought shares of Baidu.com (BIDU), but only two: one with Zecco ($204/share) and one with TradeKing ($238/share). I sold the share with Zecco and made some $50, but still hold the stock with TradeKing. Now BIDU is around $370 If only I have had the money to buy more than two shares …
• Retirement accounts(+): Like our taxable accounts, our retirement accounts, including 401(k)s and IRAs, also rebounded nicely. Gaining $13,370.87 (5.89%) in April, the total market value of our retirement accounted reached $240,193.09 at the end of last month, though part of the net increase came from our own contributions (we didn’t add new money to our taxable accounts).
• 529 plans(+): Our daughters’ 529 plans also got a boost from the stock markets, gaining $1,374.76 (10.27%) to $14,755.01 in April. As far as I can tell, this probably is the first double-digit gain month for accounts that don’t usually fluctuate a lot.
• Bonds(+): Our investments in I-bonds increased by $142.80 (1.07%) to $13,466.58.

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