So, once again, not many changes to report. The market went down quite a bit at the end of August, erasing all the gains it had made since last month. It’s pretty frustrating to see the market staying nearly flat (or down) for a year, but it’s also probably a good thing in the long term. The CAPE ratio for the US market in August 2021 reached a peak of 37....
Financially, not much change to report for this month or last. Inflation is still pretty high (although maybe it’s starting to taper off?), the Yen is still pretty weak (although it’s slightly stronger than it was last month), and the market is still pretty much doing whatever it wants to do. My investments made a pretty good recovery in July, increasing by about 4.8%, and it basically returned my position to where I was at the end of February of this year....
Not a whole lot of change compared to last month. Inflation continues to rage on, JPY continues to weaken (currently at 134 JPY/USD as I write this), and market continues to fall. Japan is slowly preparing to re-open to tourism, probably targeting a full “reopening” for later this summer, but no official announcement yet. As of mid-June they have resumed “tourism” with North Korean-style chaperoned fixed-itinerary tours with handlers and strict supervision....
Apologies for not posting the last few months. Looking back at my previous post, the same concerns are even more relevant now: inflation and exchange rate. Since I last wrote, the yen has sharply weakened to its lowest level in 20 years. Currently it is sitting at about 130 JPY / USD, and it is now a regular topic of conversation on the evening news. As someone who earns money in JPY, it is disheartening to see my salary worth less and less compared to my “home” currency of dollars....
Not too much to report on for this month. Investment-wise, the US market seems to be close to entering a correction (10% decrease) for the year, which isn’t too suprising given the almost unabated rapid growth we’ve had in the last several years. By contrast, my own investments have declined by less than half that in the same period, due to my more conservative and diversified investment strategy. As a result, I’m not really worried about the markets at this point....
Happy New Year! I haven’t posted in a few months due to a recent change in my living situation: I moved into a new apartment with my girlfriend! It was an expensive move (as is the norm in Japan) with a lot of unavoidable fees, and the rent is about double what each of us were paying living separately, but in return we are getting almost 3 times the space. Each of us has enough space to work from home without disturbing each other, and we are able to spend even more time together without having to plan ahead or compensate for work schedules....
I got a new phone this month since my 3+ year old OnePlus 6 is approaching end-of-life. It received its final major software update about a month ago, its battery has trouble making it through a day without recharging, its charging connector seems to be bent since most cables don’t stay seated, and various other small issues continue to pop up. It’s been a great phone so far, and I’ll probably keep it around as a backup phone or to turn into a home device or hobby project....
Started a new job this month. So far, it’s much nicer than my previous job. It’s refeshing to work on a new team doing a new project, especially one that already has a proven track record of success. Hopefully my tenure here will be longer than my previous jobs in Japan, since I’m tired of going through the motions to change jobs every 6 months or so. Not counting relatively short gaps between jobs, I haven’t had a real vacation in almost 2 years....
This month I decided to try getting more organized with tracking finances. Up until now, I have been using Mint to track my financial transactions through my US bank accounts and credit cards. It’s been working well for me for over a decade, but the product itself is pretty stagnant and hasn’t advanced much over the years. I can’t really complain since it’s a free service and does all the basics of what I need it to do, but the fact that it doesn’t work with non-US accounts is a bit of a problem since I live in Japan....
I made a slight change to my investment strategy this month by changing my US small-cap value fund from Vanguard’s fund tracking the CRSP SCV index (VSIAX) to the more focused Avantis SCV ETF (AVUV). It’s an actively-managed fund (gasp!) but the expense ratio is really low which mitigates the principal downside of active funds. It is more focused than VSIAX due to applying more stringent value and profitability screens, so in theory one should expect better risk-adjusted performance due to greater exposure to the value and profitability factors....