Asset panic - Why you should really pay attention to the details of your finances

August 7th, 2007

Asset panic - Why you should really pay attention to the details of your finances

A few days ago I got a statement from Wachovia that they had sold my retirement assets at my request (I am transferring them to Vanguard). I knew the approximate value of my portfolio at the time I requested the transfer, and when I scanned the statement outlining what was sold, I looked at the final value and immediately panicked. The value shown on the sheet was about $1700 less than the value my portfolio had only 3 weeks before that. I knew I had unwittingly picked a bad time to move assets but I wasn’t prepared for it to be *that* bad. $1700 represented roughly 15% of my portfolio value… all in one fell swoop.

Well… after a few minutes of panicking I settled down and tried to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious. After comparing the sheet to my most recent brokerage statement, I realized that (of course) my money market account which was also being transferred wasn’t listed, which has about $1300 in it. (Why I had a money market in a retirement account is a long story and also part of why I should pay more attention but anyhow. I don’t any more! Vanguard Target 2040 all the way! )

So in actuality my portfolio was only down $400 and not $1700. Still not a nice thing but it didn’t make me feel ill inside. And now it is sold and being transferred to Vanguard. Hopefully that all happens really soon and then I can just watch it grow. And start contributing more to it eventually.