Readers Portfolios – Global Capitalist's 1st Post

To regular readers of Retirement Investing Today what you read in today’s post represents a significant milestone. That’s because up until today everything written was essentially my opinion which was then sometimes commented on by readers. Today that changes with the introduction of a new series of posts which detail the portfolio’s of readers of Retirement Investing Today. The first post is from Global Capitalist.

Adding more Emerging Markets Equities – db x-trackers XMEM

As I discussed yesterday my Emerging Markets Allocation in my Low Charge Portfolio had fallen to 3.2% against a target allocation of 5.0%. This was a variation of 37% against my target which was by far the worst of any of my asset classes. I’ve therefore used 0.8% of my total portfolio value held in cash to buy into the db x-trackers MSCI EMERGING MARKETS TRN INDEX ETF with ticker symbol XMEM on Friday afternoon. This gives me an allocation to emerging markets now of 4.0%.

It’s been a good year to date, well maybe it has - my Retirement Investing Today Current Low Charge Portfolio – August 2010

Why has it been good year to date for my portfolio? Well year to date my Personal Rate of Return is 3.9%, which compares favourably against my Benchmark Portfolio which has returned 3.0%. For non-regular readers my Benchmark Portfolio is as simple as it can get by using 28% iBoxx® Sterling Liquid Corporate Long-Dated Bond Index total return (capital & Income) index and 72% FTSE 100 total return (capital & income) index.

Interest rates at 0% haven’t worked, QE hasn’t worked, will QE Lite - S&P 500 cyclically adjusted PE (PE10 or CAPE) – August 2010 Update

In an attempt to try and force a recovery in the US the Federal Reserve have decided that they will undertake “QE Lite” which will entail using the proceeds from maturing mortgage bonds, which were bought using Quantitative Easing (money printing in my books), to now buy long dated government debt. I guess they are hoping that this will force bond yields down further which will reduce borrowing costs across the board for the average punter. I’m thinking two things:

Isn’t Greece doing well? Its people must be so proud – Aus, UK, US and the PIGS government 10 year bond yields – August 2010 update

It’s been a few months since I last had a look at the 10 year government bond yields of Australia, UK, US and the PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) however with the IMF and others applauding Greece for their "vigorous implementation of the fiscal programme" I thought it might be a good time to revisit. Generally all yields since June 10 have either been flat or fallen which I think means the market sees investment in these countries carrying the same risk or less risk of default than previously. Let’s look quickly at the yields:
- Australia has gone from 5.11 to 5.16
- UK has gone from 3.35 to 3.22
- US has gone from 2.96 to 2.83
- Portugal has gone from 5.98 to 5.06
- Italy has gone from 4.10 to 3.79
- Greece has gone from 10.60 to 10.31
- Spain has gone from 4.70 to 4.07