Portfolio Update 6/27/08: Swan Dive

Well, the portfolios took the worst one week swan dive, since I started my little experiment. The markets may stink, but I'm getting used to the smell.

I'm pleased at how well the diverse portfolios have held up, compared to just diving into the S&P 500. Down about 5% is better than down 13%.


Despite all the terrible economic news, don't lose perspective. Had you invested $50k on May 1st of 2007 in the WylieMoney 20 Mostly managed portfolio, you would be down only 2.5%. Sure you can point out that even dismal money market accounts have done better than that.

Hindsight is great.

Money Market funds will never grow as much as investments in equity markets might. Stash your money in a Money Market fund if you want to be safe- but for those of us with better things to do than survive, equities are the way to go.

Apologies to Ani (pronounced ah-nee) for terrible misappropriation of a great song.

WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed

WylieMoney Slowly

Lazy 20 Mostly Index

Three Fund Index

ETF 20

S&P 500

Fund of Last Week... DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity (yet again)

So far, the fund of the week updates I have been giving have been kinda boring. DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity wins yet again. Yawn. Sure, I'm glad that I bought a fund this year that is already up over 10%. But it is such a small percentage of my IRAs, that it is hard to really get excited about it.


Fortunatley, the worst fund of the week is different almost every week. Last week JSVAX, Janus Contrarian lost over 4% making it the biggest stinker. 5 stars means strong returns relative to risk. Well this fund has had VERY strong returns, and is a bit risky and some of that risk is now manifesting as pain. JSVAX is not scared of emerging markets and you can see that Vanguard's emerging market index fund was also in the bottom 10.

Portfolio Update 6/20/08: Escape From New York

Weeks like last week make me want to run away from Wall Street, even Escape from New York all together. I was so disgusted, I waited until today to post last week's summary. Well unless tomorrow ends up being a tremendously positive day, I'll be looking for another foreboding song to link too for this week too.

I did not escape from New York. I lost hypothetical money.

Last week was another week where the mostly managed, diverse portfolios held up the best.

WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed

WylieMoney Slowly

Lazy 20 Mostly Index

Three Fund Index

ETF 20

S&P 500

Fund of the Week: DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity (Again)

Surprise surprise... DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity was the best performing fund last week, again. It is up 8.30% since I added it to my IRA this spring. Sadly it only represents a small percentage of my IRA so is not really moving my IRA up in my mutual fund experiment.

Unlike last week however, the other funds in the top 10 are not bonds but represent domestic equity from a variety of mutual fund categories.

And the funds with the biggest one week decline are almost all foreign funds.

Portfolio Update 6/13/08: Dancing with Myself

After another brutal week, the WylieMoney 20 Portfolio is the only mutual fund in this experiment still showing a profit, leaving me dancing with myself. Were this a real portfolio, even the WylieMoney portfolio would be negative after the taxes I would have paid this past April.

The WylieMoney 20 had a bad Friday and one week performance, giving up a little of its lead,

WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed
WylieMoney Slowly Lazy 20 Mostly Index Three Fund Index ETF 20 S&P 500

Fund of The Week: DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity

Once again, DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity posted the best one week performance. Another Natural Resources fund, PNRZX Jennison Natural Resources Z also made the top 1o. The other 8 funds were bond funds, though the gains were not great.

This week, value funds (which invest in Financial companies, among others) and international funds took the biggest pounding with emerging markets really taking a blow.

Portfolio Update 6/06/08: Bad

Friday was bad and last week was not pretty, but it could be worse.

None of the portfolios are still in positive territory year to date. And once again, the WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed Portfolio posted the best Friday, one week, year-to-date, and all time record.

The S&P 500 had it rough, but it took some research to find out how rough.

Morningstar has SPY as being down 1.79 on Friday despite showing that it opened at $140.41 per share and closed at $136.29 per share.

CNN/Money has it right.

Morningstar has DIA, an ETF that tracks the DOW, posted correctly.



Not sure how M* got it wrong... Both the markets and Morningstar had a bad Friday I guess.

WylieMoney 20 Mostly Managed

WylieMoney Slowly

Lazy 20 Mostly Index

Three Fund Index

ETF 20

S&P 500

Today is the day I'm adding MIOFX

Today is the day I'm adding MIOFX Marsico International Opportunities to the WylieMoney Slowly portfolio.

Next WylieMoney Slowly Fund: MIOFX Marsico International Opportunities

As we move into June, it is time to add the 14th fund to the WylieMoney Slowly portfolio. The 14th category I picked was Foreign Large Cap Growth. My original pick was JAOSX Janus Overseas My Post. Unfortunately, this fund is closed to new investors. The options available all have significantly higher expenses and have not come close to the performance of JAOSX over 1 year, 3 years or 5 years.

That said, this has still been a strong category. There appear to be three top options based on one year and 5 year records.


The top three all have pretty high turnover which is not great for a taxable portfolio and have a lot of their portfolio invested in their top 10 holdings which means there is less diversity than one might hope.


Etrade lists one of the funds expense ratio at 15.14%.


Wondering if this is bad information, I looked up the fund on Morningstar and find that the expense ratio is actually 1.5%. Much more reasonable, but still not great.
I then checked the other two top performing funds in my list and Etrade has a different expense ratio for both of those funds as well. The top performing funds' expenses appear to be 1.37%, not 1.42%.

Harbor International Growth's expenses were only off by .01%, but it is still odd that Etrade appears to have this wrong.


I already picked a Harbor International fund for the Foreign Large Value category My Post so I am going to go with MIOFX Marsico International Opportunities. So the first day in June that Equities take a beating, I'll add MIOFX to the WylieMoney Slowly Portfolio.

Fund of the Week: TWCVX American Century Vista

The strongest fund last week, of the funds I track, was TWCVX American Century Vista. I own this in an IRA. Mid and Small Cap Growth and Small Cap Blend funds were the only categories represented in the top 10.


Inflation protected Bonds and Tips made up the bottom 10, along with DJP iPath Dow Jones-AIG Commodity Index Total Return ETN, which continues to be the most volatile fund I track, showing up in the top 10 or bottom 10, almost every week.

Who knew soybeans and coffee could be so exciting?