Net Worth Update

One word for the market this month: UGLY. The US total market, as measured by Vanguard's Total Market ETF (VTI), dropped 4.6% in July. I had some domestic funds that fared better, and some that fared worse, but my international holdings helped soften the blow . . . a little. In total, my investments dropped 3.5% in July. This did offer a nice buying opportunity for my Roth IRA (bought Friday) and my employer retirement accounts (bought yesterday). However, those low purchases won't show much benefit until down the road a bit. For now, my net worth isn't looking so hot.

Since I started tracking in late February, this is my first period of negative change in Net Worth. I had quite a bit in new investments and debt reduction, but they were edged out by market losses. In total, my Net Worth dropped 0.3% from June 2 to July 1. It's not that bad in the context of the market, but you never like to be moving backward.


This month's setback means that progress toward my goal of 34.8% net worth growth this year falls back to about 22.3%. This is still ahead of the necessary pace, so if the market picks back up at all I am confident that I'll get there by next February.

My net investable assets (-0.4%) and net liquid assets (-0.6%) both fell this month, since they both have a higher correlation to the market than my net worth as a whole. Both were hurt significantly by market losses, and were not helped enough by new investments and debt reduction to offset the drop.

I'm not going to get down about this month's setback. I did my part, reducing debt, saving, and investing new funds, and it was simply a bad month in the market. This is going to happen from time to time and as long as I keep plodding ahead, I'll come out in good shape in the end. In a month where the market dips 4-5%, I consider only losing 0.3% in net worth a minor success.