We saw a little bit of volatility at the start of this month. In fact, within a couple of days, our overall portfolio was down by more than $10,000 at one point in time.

This episode is a good reminder to myself that market movements are not within my control. I only have autonomy over my own actions. There’s only 3 things I can do in the stock market. Buy, sell or do nothing.

In a falling market, I prefer to narrow the choice to 2 to simplify decision-making. Either do nothing or buy some stocks.

And yes, most of the time, we did nothing. After all, we do not have a bottomless cash pile. This also meant that we did make a couple of purchases.

Overall Portfolio (Value: $432,000)

Monthly Change: -$6,000 (-1.4%)

Yearly Change: +$42,000 (+10.8%)

1. 15HWW Permanent Portfolio
Both the STI ETF and Berk ...