Although I have not made any more purchases, I thought it was about time to provide a quick performance update. My portfolio is up roughly about 4% based on today's closing prices all in all not too bad in my opinion, given where deposit rates are sitting currently! Also my goal is to TRY and achieve a 10% annualised return from the portfolio over its lifetime. Considering I only made my first investment in late August this year and after missing the bulk of the post crash rally things are going reasonably well. Due to my late start this year I am only aiming for a 5% return as at the 31st of December 2009. A performance update based on this measurement point will be posted in due course sometime in January 2010.
Onto the second part of this post with Christmas just around the corner I decided I would list some of the books and websites I have used in the past year which I found very useful in designing my portfolio and forming my investment philosophy. As stated back in my first post the primary goal of this portfolio is to provide extra retirement income. Investments will be passive/index tracking in nature and facilitated through ETF's. Using ETF's will also serve to keep portfolio expenses low. An ISA tax wrapper is also being used to maximise tax avoidance.
In terms of books, I like the following;
The Little Book of Common Sense Investing by Jack Boogle
Live it Up Without Outliving Your Money by Paul Merriman
The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein
Unconventional Success A Fundamental Approach to Personal Investment by David Swensen
All of these books basically repeat the same mantra that active management fails to beat the market return over the long term and that a low cost index tracking or passive investing style is the best way for retail investors to conduct their investing. They also give advice on asset allocation, portfolio construction and maintenance and highlight some of the traps or risks which the retail investor should seek to mitigate or avoid altogether in their investing lives. All of the books are available on Amazon and a perusal of the reviews left by other customers should help you decide which titles you may wish to purchase.
In terms of websites, two of the above named authors have great websites which provide a wealth of information on investing from the view point of the small retail investor. The Vanguard website and Paul Merriman's website FundAdvice I found both of these exceptional in terms of educational articles. FundAdivce in particular I found to be very very good. It has model portfolios on the site and a wealth articles on asset allocation and retirement investing which are generally backed up by hard stats and tables of figures. Other good websites that I like include the following;
Kiplingers Personal Finance
Morningstar
Motley Fool
MarketWatch (See the Lazy Portfolio section)
MarketRiders
Hopefully with a little time off over the festive period some of these websites and the aforementioned books could be worth a look? One of the books might even be worth buying and reading. With some research done between now and New Year perhaps you will like me, seek to follow a similar passive/index based investing path with your own investments in the New Year.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)