I started my portfolio with a starting balance of $500,000. This is the cash amount, which was provided. I needed to follow the provided instructions on asset allocation. According to the instructions, I was supposed to allocate my initial investment as follows; Future contracts $20,500, individual stocks $250,0000, Individual bonds $100,000, Mutual funds/ETFs $100,000 and hold $29,500 in cash. In choosing the stock I had to take into considerations the various risks as well as ratings. This was done using the knowledge that I have learned in class. I also realized that in order for my portfolio to perform, I had to take certain risks as well as keep track of the various stocks performance so as to make important decisions. …show more content…
The modification started on April 24th, 2015. During the first week, my portfolio was doing pretty good compared to the S&P 500 small relative returns. Though the return was positive in order to achieve my objectives of high return while assuming moderate risk, I had to make some modifications to my portfolio. The S&P 500 futures, June contract prices did not show a clear direction. These seemed to be too risky holding them. Therefore, when the prices were high, I saw the opportunity and sold them on 24TH April 2015,at a profit of $2,410. Hence this aligned to my objective of assuming moderate risk while at the same time maximizing returns. My stock of Twitter share price was stagnated at around $51; this meant this stock was quite stable though the price was moving downwards. This prompted me to do research on Twitter. There was no benefit of continuing to hold unproductive stock in my portfolio. In one of my research session, I also found out that Twitter was about to announce its earnings report and analysts thought earning would be below expectations and that will surely affect the price of the share. Therefore, on 27th April, I sold all my 200 shares in Twitter at a price of $103,320. Though this was quite a loss, I was comfortable with my decision to sell the stock. Continual holding of the stock would lead to more loss according …show more content…
My portfolio is a representative of my short-term goals and objective and I believe I was able to achieve my objectives and short-term goals. I was able to diversify risk through holding different securities and stocks of firms in different sectors. I was also able to follow my preference of moderate risk by holding less risky corporate bonds and satisfy my liquidity constraint, which is to have more cash in hand for capital budgeting and other future investments opportunities. Generally I was able to gain $15,782.21 from initial investment of $500,000 and that is included $546.45 accrued interest on bonds. I feel comfortable with these earnings, as they will enable me finance my daily expense and bills. For liquidity I could use the amount of cash in capital budgeting and future investments opportunities. This undertaking has been very useful and of value addition to me. The knowledge I have gained will be very useful for my future