February 2018 : Investment Portfolio Status

February is almost over and it’s time for my monthly status update. Volatility has been the main story of this month. S&P 500 dropped 11.49% to a low of 2,542.92. It has recovered some of the losses and is only down 5.54% from the beginning of the month. It’s offered us a rare opportunity to buy stocks at a discount. Unfortunately, I was unable to add more during this downturn (due to lack of capital).

Dividends
My forward dividends reached $897.13. This is an 8.69% increase from prior month. I was able to convert my Vanguard Value Index Fund (VIVAX) fund to an ETF. This reduced my expense ratio to 0.06% from 0.18%, which increased my yield by 0.12%. My goal for 2018 is $1,500 in forward dividends. My forward dividends are at 59.81% of this goal.

My overall investment portfolio grew by 2.58%. This is by far the lowest month-on-month increase for my investment portfolio. I had a 5.80% growth in portfolio through infusion of new capital (inorganic growth). My portfolio dropped by -3.22% thanks to the drop in stock market.

Largest position in my portfolio is S&P 500 ETF (38.97%) and average expense ratio is 0.072%. I added a goal of being Financially Independent (FI) by 2032. With my current investments and dividends I am at 5.50% of FI.

Finally, I have also started funding my Roth IRA account.

Side Hustles
In addition to dividends I plan on including my side hustle income in my monthly summary. My side hustle income is from Swagbucks.com, TopCashBack.com, credit cards (cash back) and Raise.com. My total side hustle income for February was $37.64.