Obama Family Investments Tanked, Too
| Thursday, March 19, 2009 8:19 AM By: Gene J. Koprowski | Article Font Size   |
Whether President Obama's tax-and-spend policies will do much to help or hurt the economy remains to be seen, but it’s abundantly clear that his own investments have tanked, according to a just-published analysis.
Business Week studied the family’s financial disclosure forms and figure Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama may have lost up to $248,000 so far in the markets.
The Obama family investments on Wall Street may have lost 38 percent of their value during the last 15 months, according to the analysis. The losses continue. The Dow has dropped some 2,000 points during Obama's tenure as president. The S&P 500 has dropped 15 percent in 2009.
The Obamas keep the bulk of their investable assets — somewhere between $1.5 million and $6.1 million — in much safer checking accounts, money market accounts, and U.S. Treasury bills.
Most of Obama's wealth is new; he earned $4 million from book royalties in 2007 alone.
The largest holding in the Obama portfolio is the Vanguard FTSE Social Index (VFTSX), which contained between $150,000 and $350,000. The Obamas also had investments in the Vanguard Wellesley Fund, according to the report.
Financial disclosure forms for 2008 come out in May, so it’s unclear whether the Obamas stuck to their guns or cashed out and took a loss. If so, they could have lost up to $660,000, the report indicated.
If Obama’s public statements are in fact how he chooses to invest, he is a bit of a buy-and-hold bull. In early March, Obama told Americans that stocks were a good buy.
A broad index of stocks since that date has risen by nearly 13 percent. We’ll know in May if he took his own advice and put more of that cash to work in stocks.
© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
| Print Page | | | Forward Page | | | E-mail Us |
No comments:
Post a Comment