My Investment Return in 2008 - Part 3 - IRA

In this little series of article I'd like to take the opportunity to review the investment return of my portfolios.

In part 1 and part 2 I mentioned my disappointing return on both of my 401K and Roth IRA which are both invested in mutual fund.  The next portfolio I'd like to go over is IRA.

IRA

Instead of like most people who put IRA in mutual fund, my IRA brokerage firm allow me to invest in stocks.  So instead of letting the professionals help me manage my money, I manage the money myself.  And how did it work out?  Losing even more money?  Well, as of 12/31, my return on IRA is actually 26%.  Yes. 26% gain for the year.  I actually had everything in mutual fund at first.  Yet later in the year I switch my holding to stocks.  Although I actually got huge loss in the beginning, I was able to fight back in the last month and turn it around to a respectable 26% for the year.  And compare to Roth IRA which is only about 1% of my total holding and 401K which is about 5% of my total holding, IRA is 21% of my total holding and the gain really help my overall performance.   

Overall Return 2008: +26%

Next One Coming Up - Stock