Portfolio Update December 2008

YTD Returns : -10.44%

The market seems to have reach a bottom since Oct '08 as the portfolio value is not going down as fast as before.

However, hedge funds I owned have all suspended redemption till Jan/Feb '09. So, Jan/Feb '09 should set the trend for next year. If hedge fund redemption continue, I'm sure you will see more selling in the market.

This downturn have left me to re-examine my strategy. My intended allocation was to be 50% equities/alternatives and 50% in bonds. However, should I even be 50% in equities and alternatives as an asset class since I would be very comfortable receiving all the coupons from the bonds. The coupons payment would put the portfolio in the highest income bracket if it should be taxable as an individual. So, why am I in equities at all?? :-s

Buffett's Humour

Power Point: Buffett on 0% interest rates - Postcards

Power Point: Buffett on 0% interest rates

Warren Buffett emailed this note to the directors of his company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), Tuesday after he heard that the U.S. Treasury sold $32 billion in 4-week bills at a yield of 0%:

“This should be bullish for Berkshire. With great foresight, I long ago entered the mattress business in a big way through our furniture operation. Now mattresses have become fully competitive as a place to put your money, and sales will soon take off.”

8 really, really scary predictions

Dow 4,000. Food shortages. A bubble in Treasury notes. Fortune spoke to
eight of the market's sharpest thinkers and what they had to say about
the future is frightening.

1 of 8

Nouriel Roubini

Known as Dr. Doom, the NYU economics professor saw the mortgage-related meltdown coming.

We are in the middle of a very severe recession that's going to continue through all of 2009 - the worst U.S. recession in the past 50 years. It's the bursting of a huge leveraged-up credit bubble. There's no going back, and there is no bottom to it. It was excessive in everything from subprime to prime, from credit cards to student loans, from corporate bonds to muni bonds. You name it. And it's all reversing right now in a very, very massive way. At this point it's not just a U.S. recession. All of the advanced economies are at the beginning of a hard landing. And emerging markets, beginning with China, are in a severe slowdown. So we're having a global recession and it's becoming worse.

Click link for more.