The Boom Continues – Australian Property Market – August 2010 Update

With the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publishing its House Price Index on the 04 August and its Average Weekly Earnings Index yesterday I can again look at affordability of Australian Property. Of course regular readers will now that I have an interest in Australia as with a fair wind 6 years from now it could be a “retirement” location for me.

The Lost Decade – History of Severe Real S&P 500 Stock Bear Markets – August 2010 Update

At my first post on this topic, back in January 2010, looking at severe real S&P 500 bear markets I postulated whether once the governments of the world stopped stimulating their economies through borrowing and quantitative easing whether we could see a real -60% bear market from the previous high within this economic cycle. Well as I highlighted here there still seems to be life in governments (or their agencies) yet with the recent QE Lite announcement.

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.