2023 year in review - top 6 highlights

2023 was a fantastic year for people who held on to their stocks–up ~25% for the year. Despite interest rates, the cost of housing, and the cost of cars still being high, it was an overall good year for investors. As long as you were in crypto, bonds, or stocks it was pretty hard to have lost money. In this post, I will go over some of the highlights of my year. Are you ready? Standby.

6. S&P 500 is up 25% on the year

A good portion of my portfolio is in the S&P 500, so this really helped my overall net worth. More on that later.

5. My IRA account is up 125.43% on the year

I own a decent amount of TQQQ in my IRA (up ~200% for the year) and it paid off. However, my IRA account is tiny compared to the others. 

4. Built up a $450,000 cash reserve in case the market crashes

I have this cash stored in short-term bonds yielding me ~5% for the year. 

3. Trimmed down many of my individual stock positions

I sold a decent amount of individual stocks including TGT, AMZN, and FB. 

2. Ahead of FIRE schedule by +$876,549.29

Despite being behind schedule by over $285,000 at the end of 2022, I ended 2023 ahead of schedule by $876,000. The emotional rollercoaster over the last 2 years took a good amount of self-restraint and confidence to hold it together. Seeing my net worth quickly swing down by ~$2M, only to slowly climb up and out of that hole was a good test for me. I’m glad I stuck with the plan even though I don’t bring in the big income anymore. 

1. Increased my net worth by $1,671,000

The biggest surprise for me was actually how much my total net worth increased. This figure is different from the +/- number of being ahead/behind the FIRE schedule. It’s just an absolute figure that’s the ultimate metric that matters. A very large portion of this is due to the monster rebound year in MSFT (+57%) and FB (+184%). For better or for worse, I still hold fairly big positions in those.

Conclusion

I haven’t been blogging much in 2023 because it’s been a relatively uneventful year for me. I’ve not made any big financial decisions and the news is roughly the same every month (i.e. inflation is getting curbed, and rate hikes have slowed/stopped). Is 2024 the year of the crash? Will it be an opportunity for those with cash? I’m not sure, but the market sure is frothy and I feel good about sitting on a decent amount of cash (earning 5%) in case an opportunity arises.