Parchayi.com – Personal Finance Simplified

I just ran an XRay on all our investments today and I was sort of surprised. I knew my International exposure would be less since I sold of a majority of my India funds. However, considering that my largest holding is VEIEX (9% of my portfolio), it was strange to see that my portfolio was still 62% US Stocks and 34% Foreign Stocks making it very similar to my allocation in July inspite of a lot of changes in my holdings. My style diversification is also very close to July’s with majority Large Cap holdings. So I really need to focus on moving some funds around to midcaps and internationals.

I’m waiting for a pullback in India before I dive in again. As of now the premium on INP is >10% while IFN trades at a 15% discount!! I’m not entirely sure which one I would buy. Right now I’m waiting and watching. I did acquire some FNI even though it invests only in ADRs and recently acquired some GOOG and AAPL hoping that next year will bring even more success as the iPhone goes international, Macs gain marketshare, Google takes over even more of the webs advertising dollars and hopefully launches a gPhone.

Wachovia Insiders (including the CEO and other directors) have been buying up a lot of stock lately as the stock has taken a severe beating. The yeild on Wachovia stock is currently over 6.5% and it probably can’t get too much better. So I got myself some Wachovia stock too, which I hope will payoff more in dividends than my savings accounts long term.

Here is a list of some ridiculous dividend yeilds from Financials

Some of these dividends have always been growing (e.g. BAC has raised dividends for 30 straight years). I would expect Bank of America and Wachovia to continue paying their dividend and even raise it as usual in 08. Citigroups ability has been called into question and I wouldn’t bet on it but that dividend will probably continue.

As for the other banks, do your own research. But in any case if you are looking at financials, now may be a good time to buy.

The Bombay stock exchange breifly crossed 20,000 twice before closing below 20,000. Is 20,000 here to stay or are we headed in for a wild ride and headed back to 18,000? Noone can tell. For now, I have unloaded my India funds and taken some profits. I will get back in at dips. However they maybe a while coming if the current pace continues. It took only a few weeks for the massive gains.

Along with India, China has also posted spectacular gains. Thanks in part to India (INP) and China(FXI), my mimf2007 contest portfolio is up more than 50% for the year.

Recently I ran across an interesting new ETF – FNI – First Trust Chindia – exposure to both India and China in the same fund – that’s nice. The only problem with this fund is that it invests in ADRs, not directly in the market. The problem with that is that there are not that many Indian ADRs to select from so the fund basically invests in all of them. I don’t know what the case for Chinese ADRs is, however. FNI has done well since it’s inception this year (obviously) but ADR premiums and discounts swing wildly and make for too much volatility. Inspite of that I might consider a position in FNI with some of the proceeds from my IFN and INP sale to gain some China exposure.