My Investments and Online Income (June 2008)

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June 2008 was a difficult month for the stock market. Along with the market, my investments were down significantly. For the year my investment portfolio is down about 10%. On the bright side, my online income held steady.

Here are all the details of both my investments and online income.

My Investment Portfolio

My asset allocation plan has not changed, even during this difficult market. Here’s the plan as modified to increase bonds to 30%, a change I made at the beginning of the year:

My actual investments track reasonableyclose to this plan. Here is a snapshot of my portfolio from Morningstar:

One of the great features of Morningstar is its X-Ray tool, which will show you exactly what a mutual fund owns. For example, mutual funds will always hold some amount in cash. They do this to have funds on hand when investors sell their shares, and some funds hold cash when they are scouting for investments. The key point to remember is that if you want say 30% invested in bonds and cash, recognize that even your equity funds will hold some amount in cash. So even though the above chart shows that I have about 23% invested in bonds (PTTRX, VWEHX, TPINX, and VIPSX), I really have more than that when you add in the cash all the equity funds are holding.

Note: You can find more articles on how to use Morningstar to become a more informed investor in the online investing section of The Dough Roller.

If there is any area that has deviated from plan, it is my allocation to large U.S. companies. The plan was 15%, yet my allocation is closer to 25%. Again, this is somewhat misleading because these funds hold cash, so my allocation is not off as much as it appears. But I am shifting from large U.S. equities to bonds through monthly contributions as a way to align my actual investments with my asset allocation plan.

Online Income

My online income (cash received) for June 2008 was $1,629.73. This income came from a variety of sources including Adsense and several affiliate programs. Most of this income came from The Dough Roller, although I am starting to generate online income from other sites I’m developing. Like investing, making money online takes a lot of hard work and patience. It won’t happen overnight, but it is a great source of extra income.

Berkshire Hathaway & Common Hope

As regular readers know, I invest 50% of my online income in shares of Berkshre Hathaway (through my Sharebuilder account) and donate 50% to a charity called Common Hope. Through June, we have been fortunate enough to contribute $5,210 to Common Hope. Our goal for the year is $10,000, so I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll meet our goal.

Investments in Berkshire Hathaway total $1,298.36, which represent a $200 loss from my initial investment. The last two months I’ve not contributed to Berkshire due to some unexpected expenses. I do expect, however, to resume investments soon. Using ShareBuilder has been great. Each investment costs just $4 and it is very easy to use.

Although much of the financial news is negative, I am optimistic about the short term. The tools and means to make and manage money online have never been better. And both the stock market and real estate market offer many excellent buying opportunities. In fact, my business partner and I just purchased another HUD Foreclosure, which I’ll be writing about on our real estate investing blog later this week.

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