Monday, January 21, 2008

401k 2007 Performance Review

Last week I received my 401k statement for the 2007 year. I have only been able to contribute to my 401k since October so there isn't much money in there but I think it important for me to see how the funds I've been putting into have been doing.

According to my statement, my year portfolio rate of return was 7.38%. I am very pleased with this considering my first contribution went into the fund in October 3rd. If this rate was annualized it would be over 28%. I have picked some good funds to place my money into.

One fund lost me money. Since I've had my account open I have lost $2.97 in Accumulative Fund. Recently, I quit contributing money into this fund and chose Dividend Income Fund to contribute to instead. Hopefully this pans out good in 2008.

My best performing fund was Energy Fund. I earned $21.24 in this fund in the past 3 months. In Asset Strategy Fund I earned $18.16 over the same period. I will continue to contribute to these two funds in 2008.

This statement is for end date December 31st. So far January has been a bad month for the market. I haven't checked into how this has affected my funds but I'm sure they are not doing to well. However, I am 25 years old. This money will not be used for another 35 to 40 years and I am not too worried about one bad month. Hopefully the markets can turn it around the rest of the year and my statement for next year will give me a good positive return.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boy you have no idea what you're doing, huh? Your projected "annualized" rate of return at 28% in this post is dead wrong--the 7% would have been different if you'd been investing the whole year, it's true, but your reasoning is flawed. It's much more likely that your r.o.i. for the whole year would have been between 6 and 8 percent, depending on how your individual investments did in the 12 month period as opposed to just the final quarter you actually had money invested. Check with a financial planner before counting your chickens on this one. Especially before putting "financial advice" out there on the web for others to replicate your flawed thinking.

Dreamer said...

Dear anonymous-

I probably didn't explain myself clearly enough for you to understand. Had my funds performed this well for an entire year that would bring me a return of 28%. Now I will look at the reports for the funds I owned and see what kind of return they actually brought for those investors of the entire year. Accumulative Fund returned 3.11% over 12 months ended December 31. Energy Fund returned 24.02% for the 12 months ended December 31. Asset Strategy Fund earned 28.01% for the entire 12 months ended December 31. So you are correct. My return would have been less then 28%. Closer to 18%. I am not out there giving financial advice. I am not giving the name of the company that runs these funds. I think you are just jealous that I am 25 and already investing for retirement. Next time you decide to criticize me, please have the courage to leave your name. I would love you to see your blog if you have one and the great financial advice you have.