My Current Low Charge Portfolio – February 2010

Buying (New money): As always I contributed about 60% of my gross salary towards my retirement investing strategy. Since my last post the allocations I have made are 100% Cash.

Asset Movements: As I detailed here I also moved about 0.6% of my total retirement investing assets from cash to commodities (gold).

Selling: Nothing this month

Dividends: Australian Equites paid dividends equal to 1.6% of the total value of my Australian Equities. These dividends were moved to cash.

Current UK Retail Prices Index: 2.9%

Current Annual Charges: 0.59%

Current Expected Annual Return after Inflation: 4.1%

Current Return Year To Date (from 01 January 2010): -2.8%

How close am I to retirement: 39.7% down from 41.3%. Retirement can move further or closer each month and is affected by movements in asset allocations, asset prices or additions/withdrawals to my current low charge portfolio.

The following are the highlights for the month:

- Desired Cash portion moves from 12.4% to 11.5%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 13.5% to 14.0%.

- Desired Bonds portion doesn’t move from 17.4%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 20.1% to 20.8%.

- Desired Property stays constant at 10.0%. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 7.9% to 8.1%.

- Desired Commodities stays constant at 5.0%. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 2.6% to 3.2% with the gold purchase.

- Desired International Equity portion moves from 12.9% to 13.3%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 13.3% to 13.1%.

- Desired Emerging Market Equities stays constant at 5.0%. This month I have moved further from the desired by going from 2.9% to 2.7%.

- Desired Australian Equity portion stays moves from 19.3% to 19.2%. This month I have moved closer to the desired by going from 20.5% to 19.5%. As I mentioned above dividends helped me to remove some assets from here.

- Desired UK Equity portion moves from 18.0% to 18.6%. This month I am right on the desired by going from 19.3% to 18.6%.