Net Worth Report - End of 03/07

I took very little investment action this month, preferring not to get involved in the volatility around last month's market downturn. My only noteworthy change in investments was to sell a batch of ESPP shares that had reached their age of tax advantage (two years from the grant date).

At a St. Patrick's Day dinner I heard some interesting comments from another employee about Intel stock performance and why they sell their ESPP shares immediately. It is good advice, of course, to have a diversified portfolio and to avoid investing too much in your employer. The secondary argument is that Intel stock has performed poorly over the past seven years, so it's been a poor idea to hold on to ESPP shares. Sure, past performance does not predict future performance, but he has other reasons for being pessimistic.

I decided not to change my ESPP strategy. I don't think I'm too heavily invested in my employer — even including unvested stock options, my exposure is less than 6% of my net worth. And I'm not so downbeat on the company's future that I want to give up the tax advantage of holding the shares for the uncertain possibility of doing better elsewhere.

With the ESPP sale and a large expected tax refund (included in the above, although I haven't received it yet) I'm getting a bit cash-heavy. I'm going to get another lump of cash when some RSUs vest in a couple weeks and I sell them. (There's no tax advantage in holding them.) At that point I'm going to make some new investments, and I plan to write about my decisions.

Little new here. I may drop this section in the future because I clearly don't need to take any special action to meet my medium-term financial goals. Alternatively, I might expand this section by breaking out investment performance separately from income, so I could better see if any investments are underperforming but "look okay" due to salary income hiding their sins.

I screwed up this month. A very dumb error; I made a credit card payment late this month — by two business days, I think — and that canceled my 0% introductory rate so I had to pay off the card in full. Fortunately, it was on a card that had only a few 0% months remaining anyway. Now I only have one credit card with a 0% rate, but it's good for another whole year. (I continue to see 0% offers but they've all had something wrong in the fine print; usually high balance transfer fees.)

You can keep track of other personal finance bloggers at NetWorthIQ. I've updated my entry there.