Investments

[GRH]

Originally Posted by ila

I have investments in:
Mutual funds - taxable
Company stock - taxable
Registered Retirement Savings Plans - nontaxable until I start withdrawing from it
Pension Plan - nontaxable until I start withdrawing from it

What stocks and mutual funds do you own ila? And regarding the pension plan, is that a company plan, or is it administered by the Candian government? And is it invested in stocks/market or how is it invested?

[ila]

Originally Posted by GRH

What stocks and mutual funds do you own ila? And regarding the pension plan, is that a company plan, or is it administered by the Candian government? And is it invested in stocks/market or how is it invested?

My pension plan is government. I don't know what it is invested in, but about ten years ago the government of the day took 30 billion out of the plan because they said it was surplus.

Stocks are in the company that I work for.

My mutual funds are with one of the biggest investment companies in Canada. The particular funds that I invest in are scattered throughout the globe. I changed my exposure a while ago so that I would get a higher rate of return even though there is more risk. Even so I've more than made up for any losses during the recent economic downturn.

[The Conquistador]

I had a chance to get some Krugerrands awhile back. Shame I didn't know what they were at the time.

[GRH]

In the past few days I've increased my exposure to two ETF's. I bought a position in SCZ, which is an iShares ETF that tracks the foreign small-cap market. In addition, I added to my exposure in XLU, one of the sector ETF's that follows the utlility sector of the S&P. In December, XLU increased their dividend payment by 5 cents a share which pushed the yield of the security back over 5%. Thus, it made sense economically to reinvest some of my dividends into XLU.

[sesame]

Ai GRH,
I'm glad to see you here again after... centuries!
Nice Avatar, it goes well with your work.
So you are a busy trader now?

[GRH]

Good to see you Sesame! It has been ages. As for my trading, I'm really much too lazy and poor to be much of a "trader." I do some trading, but too much of it, and the commissions eat up your profit. A lot of my stock holdings I buy for the dividend income (which I generally reinvest in stocks) and secondarily for the capital gains. Since I invest for dividends, that means that my average holding period is usually at least 6 months.

[GRH]

I was looking at my retirement portfolio and running some statistics on where things stand. Here's my current breakdown:

Domestic Equity 62.7%
International Equity 24.7%
Bonds 9.4%
Cash Equivalents 2.2%
Gold 1.0%

Concentrations within my portfolio include the following:

Commodity Exposure 8.4%
Real Estate Exposure 8.2%
Emerging Markets Exposure 7.2%